


Confidential

by Qwerty_2poynt0



Series: The Detective Frisk AU [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Amalgamates, And stoic, Awkwardness, Bad Puns, Black Romance, Blood and Gore, Bratty and Catty are terrible liars, Character Death, Death, Death puzzles, Detective Noir, Drama, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Gore, In which frisk is unbelievably accepting, In which people really enjoy messing with Frisk for some reason., Investigations, Male! Frisk, Mettaton why, Missing Persons, Murder, Private Investigators, Racial Tension, Sans how do you do these things?, Sexual Tension, Stalking, fem! Chara, so much fun!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:08:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6145643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qwerty_2poynt0/pseuds/Qwerty_2poynt0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not happy about it. Not one bit. But he doesn't really have a choice.<br/>"If it helps," she said, "you can always blab and get thrown in prison."<br/>Don't tempt me.</p><p>Frisk is a detective, and he's recently stumbled on some rather... interesting evidence. And her name, is Chara Dreemurr. You know, the king and queen's daughter. The prince's sibling. The brutal murderer. Although, he was the only one who knew about that last one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

   "Frisk...", Chara intoned quietly as she placed her fan beneath Frisk's chin, straightening his head out. Why she did this was anyone's guess, as she now had to look up at him, being an inch shorter and only two away. Perhaps it was because it also meant Frisk had to move his eyes down to look at her. Or rather glare, as he was doing now.

   "Your  _majesty."_ , Frisk replied, failing to hide the contempt in his voice. Chara smirked, meeting his gaze directly, swallowing him in her scarlet irises.

   "I'd very much like to know what you think of me.", she burbled. Frisk's gaze narrowed and he said something he'd been wanting to say since he laid eyes on her.

   "You're dangerously insane and need mental care, princess."

   She let out a bell-like giggle. It wouldn't be nearly as jarring if it weren't for the fact he'd heard her emit ear-shattering mad cackles. He almost didn't believe this was the same woman who'd killed ten people so far. Almost.

-+-

One Week Earlier

   The scene was straight out of a horror show. The corpses were facedown on the ground, lying in a huge pool of the three -now deceased- different people's blood. Standing over them was a feminine figure. Their hands, which held two sharp butcher knives, were thoroughly stained with blood that dripped down their weapons, and their back was to Frisk as he compulsively continued to survey the room, slightly less petrified than last time. And the time before that. The figure turned around, as they always did, their face, clothes, and hair saturated in blood.

   The first time, they'd looked at him with glazed eyes and an almost neutral expression. The second time, they'd looked confident, like they had a better sense of purpose in these weekly gore fests. Now, they were smiling. He expected them to lunge at him before escaping. They always managed to escape. Instead they began to laugh. It was a delirious, mirthful sound that murdered his eardrums and shattered his soul. 

 "My, my, my...", they... she spoke, "You just have the world's best timing, don't you, my dear detective? Three times now! Are you sure you even want to continue the investigation?"

   "... Why? Why are you..."

   Her smile widened.

   "Love."

   She dissolved into a series of mad giggles. Frisk was so caught up in his fear that he didn't notice she was getting closer and closer. She was about three feet away from him when she stopped abruptly and put on a slightly less deranged grin. Only slightly.

   "You know," she crooned, "you have lovely eyes."

   He tasted blood as she yanked him toward her and kissed him.

   Her laugh echoed in Frisk's ears long after Napstablook got the courage to float in after him (with his eyes glued shut) and take Frisk back home.

-+-

A Week After That  
(but a few moments before the present)

   Frisk walked through the golden ballroom, having long since lost track of Napstablook, and ran into someone. They were wearing a vibrant green dress that had a bright yellow bow around the waist and a heart shaped keyhole at their collar bone, the collar of the dress rising behind their neck, which was adorned with a heart shaped locket. They wore white gloves and carried a red fan with a stark white trim to match the gloves.

   "Oh! I'm so sor... ry...", he trailed off as none other than Chara Dreemurr looked back at him with wide eyes. A mischievous smirk crossed her flawlessly painted lips. It almost seemed familiar.

   "No problem.", she looked him up and down, "I do, however, have a request."

   "What is it, your majesty?"

   "Meet me by the Falling Tree in five minutes. I have something to... discuss with you."

-+-

five minutes later

   "Perfect.", Chara rumbled as Frisk walked in front of her, "Tell me, what is your name, my  _dear detective_?"

   "It's Frisk yo-", it hit him suddenly as he recognized her expression. He immediately stepped back, completely appalled. The leaves rustled beneath his feet as she let out a dark chuckle.

   "I was wondering when you'd figure it out. To be fair, I was doused in blood, and the lighting in those rooms was horrid. So," she stepped closer, "are you enjoying the party?"

   "You... ho-"

   "Now, now, that's not much of an answer, Frisk."

   "I guess I just like pretending questions I don't want to answer are rhetorical."

   "Haha. Quite. Still, it's rather impolite to refuse a lady. Especially when she happens to be the princess. And happens to be able to kill you twelve different ways."

   "Oh, I'm fully aware of that."

   "How lovely."

   She'd somehow managed to get a mere two inches from his face and asked yet another question, to which he gave her his honest answer, warranting her laugh.

   "So," she gathered herself, "what do you intend to do with this information?"

    _Never_ had someone incurred Frisk's pure hatred the way Chara Dreemurr did. And he couldn't do anything about it.

   "I assure you, princess, I don't have much use for the information."

   He wasn't happy about it. Not one bit. But he doesn't really have a choice.

   "If it helps," she said, "you can always blab and get thrown in prison."

    _Don't tempt me._

   She put her arms around his neck and he retracted from her touch. Another of her murderous grins stretched across her face, sending shivers down Frisk's spine. She lifted her lips so that they brushed against his when she spoke.

   "I could tell you my motives, but it would be much more fun to watch you try and figure them out. Now...", she shifted her eyes to look into his once again, "how about another kiss?"

   She didn't give him a chance to answer as she expertly pinched just the right place on his neck and shoulders to paralyze him as she took full advantage of his frozen state in the exact manner you'd expect. The fact that she was so good at it only irked him further.

   She removed her hands after what felt like half an hour and his muscles relaxed. Every fiber of his being told him to shove her away, but his common reasoning stopped him from doing just that. She continued to smile up at him and placed her hands on his hips. He immediately brushed them off and she pouted at him in an exaggerated manner.

   "Aw, c'mon Frisky, we were having so much fun."

   " _Don't_  call me that."

   She sighed dramatically.

   "You don't have to be so stiff. After all, this is a party. I hear your adorable little assistant is cousins with the entertainment. I vote we go back inside. Unless of course...", she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, "you'd rather stay here with me."

   "I'd rather you kill me first."

   "Oh really? I always wondered what your scream would sound like. You're much too stoic, you know.", she placed her chin on his shoulder, "I've wondered a lot of things about you, actually. How you'd look without all the droopy clothes, for instance. Or how you'd sound moaning. How your skin would feel against mine. I'm probably right in assuming you'd have other questions on your mind, no?"

   Her breath wavered on his neck as his face began to get hot. It was infuriating. Which only served to deepen the flush on his face.

   "You mean like why you'd  _murder_ random people in the most brutal way possible?"

   "Oh, don't be silly! I can think of plenty, much more brutal, ways of doing away with you. But why would I want to do that?"

   He couldn't even find a way to react, his mind was too clouded with the last two minutes and a month's worth of undiluted rage, which was something he didn't have much experience with in the first place. Or, for that matter, being the object of someone's more than likely stalker-y affections.

   "Aw, don't worry. If it helps, my first clue was a bit of a double-entendre*. I don't just do it to see you. I can do that whenever I have free time. You've just never noticed."   *(awn-TAWN-druh)

   Definitely stalker-y.

   "I'll be sure to remember that."

   "Wonderful.", she released his torso only to take hold of his arm in hers, "Shall we."

   "If you insist, princess."

   "And I do."

   " _As you wish._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to inform all that feedback is my sustenance, and I'd love it for you leave a comment! I hope this is off to a good start. ^u^


	2. Chapter 2

   "That was fun...", Napstablook whispered. He always whispered. It was like he was incapable of shouting. Then again, he didn't really even have any vocal chords, being a ghost. At least, Frisk assumed he had no vocal chords. Monster anatomy had always eluded him.

   "Yeah.", Frisk replied.

   "..."

   "..."

   There was a long silence as they continued down the sidewalk. The thick air of the Waterfall District brushed over Frisk and through Napstablook as they made their way to Napstablook's house.

   "Um... How was the food..."

   "Hm? Oh, it was... um... well, it was definitely better than Papyrus's cooking!"

   "Heh..."

   More silence. They went a little further down the pavement and ended up in front of a slightly lopsided blue abode.

   "Well... this is my house... Not that you didn't know......."

   "Yeah. Well, I'll see you Monday."

   "Yeah... bye..."

   He slowly dissolved and Frisk went on his way to the Ruins District. He kept his eyes and ears especially alert as he passed though Snowdin, a.k.a. the Shop-in District, but he soon became lost in thought somewhere past Grillby's, which was full of all types of monsters and a handful of people as usual.

    _'Love'... I didn't know what it meant when she said it in the first place, now she says it's a double-entendre. It just doesn't make sense. And it most_ certainly _doesn't make sense why she would decide to be so... so... UGH! I just can't believe her! I don't care where she's from or who she is. Killing someone is not something you should do, and now she decides to send me on a wild goose chase for the motive! Love... who could she possibly be in love with..._

   Once he'd made it through Snowdin, there was a stretch of road that to this day nobody knew why it was there. It was much quieter, but a bit colder.

    _Love... double-entendre... wait._

   "Could she be talking about Asriel?"

   He stopped to gather his thoughts.

   "She didn't seem too... murder-y at the party, or before this killing spree of her's started. Then again, homicidal maniacs act pretty much the same as everyone else. Still, she had a motive, so I don't think she's exactly a sociopath. Maybe. I want to think she's not. Besides, it makes much more sense if she's doing this because of some kind of familial reason. Though, I doubt a ten-year-old would ask her to kill anyone. He's way too sweet. So maybe all the victims have something in common..."

   He resumed walking as he continued on to the Ruins District, which was nicer than it sounded. At least, he liked to think so. Once he got home, he didn't bother turning on the lights before making his way to his room and changing out of his formal wear. He laid down on his bed and looked up at the ceiling.

   "Chara Dreemurr, you elusive homicidal maniac, I think you're not the only one who's going to need mental care when this is over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's short, so sorry if you were expecting it to be longer! Hope you like it anyway! ^u^


	3. Chapter 3

   Frisk woke up the next morning wishing it wasn't Sunday. Monday would be a much better day to investigate, since he'd actually have access to his office, but the king had always insisted that Sundays were days everyone needed to sit down and have some tea or something. It was fine in theory and nice in practice, but at the moment, Frisk really wished Asgore wasn't such a cinnamon roll. He walked out of his room and-

   "Mornin' kid."

   Sans. Of course.

   "Sans, I've been over eighteen forever. You don't have to call me 'kid' anymore."

   "Old habits die hard, kid."

   Frisk sighed.

   "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say Papyrus is attempting breakfast."

   There was a crash from the kitchen.

   "I TOLD YOU, YOU PUT IN THE CEREAL,  _THEN_ THE MILK!", shouted a familiar raspy female voice, "HOW DO YOU KEEP MESSING THIS UP?"

   "But Sans said it doesn't matter."

   "Of course it does!"

   Frisk rolled his eyes. Undyne's cooking lessons usually ended in various forms of property damage. He hoped they hadn't broken anything. Again.

   "Just make sure it ends up  _in the bowl_ , guys!", he called over as he and Sans made their way to the living room.

   "How was the party?", Sans asked as they sat down. Frisk tried his best to suppress the memory of the night's events and silently hoped Sans wouldn't follow up with asking what he'd done.

   "You were invited, too, you know."

   "Too lazy. Papyrus wouldn't tell me anything when he got back home, either. Said if I wanted to know, I should'a been there."

   "You  _should_ have, you know. I don't know what you have against  _doing stuff_."

   He shrugged. He always shrugged when someone asked things like that. Frisk thought it was just a little suspicious, but he couldn't put his finger on why.

   "Well, the music was nice.", Frisk replied, "The food was probably better than how breakfast is going to be."

   "They're just making cereal."

   "Exactly. I don't trust Undyne making food for anyone. Between her cooking skills and Alphys's diet of Ramen and more Ramen, I have no idea how both of them are still alive!"

   "Well I don't... cereal problem here."

   Frisk sighed and his exasperated breath turned into faint chuckles at Sans' first pun of the day. He was kind of glad Papyrus was otherwise occupied or he'd be raising so much cane, the ground would be devoid of any further cane to raise.

   "So, Mettaton didn't pull any dumb stunts, did he?"

   Frisk rolled his eyes. Sans may be lazy, but he never slacked off where his brother's romantic life was concerned.

   "No, Mettaton did  _not_ yank Papyrus onstage just to announce they were banging. Again."

   "You sure?"

   "Positive. Napstablook would've freaked out. Again."

   "Heh, guess you got a point, kid."

   The door suddenly burst open, and everyone in the house immediately knew...

   "GOOD MORNING BEAUTIES!"

   Why everyone congregated at  _his_ house on Sundays was one of the few mysteries Frisk had long since given up on solving, right along with Undyne and Alphys's nutrition and monster anatomy.

   "H-hello, everyone.", said another, female, voice just outside the door frame.

   "Mornin' Mettaton.", Sans said smoothly, "Alphys."

   The two newest guests moseyed themselves inside as Undyne and Papyrus came out of the kitchen.

   "Good morning Mettaton!", Papyrus greeted his boyfriend cheerfully.

   "Oh, good morning, Papy dear~.", Frisk could just  _hear_ the tildi in Mettaton's voice. Honestly, the feats of speech this robot could manage was unbelievable.

   "Hey Alphys.", Undyne gave her one of her toothy grins. When he'd first met Undyne, the expression kind of terrified Frisk, as it showed off almost all of the monster's razor sharp teeth. Though, to be fair, he was twelve when he first met her.

   "Um... H-hi Undyne..."

   Honestly, Mettaton was right, those two should just kiss and get it over with.

   "Breakfast will be ready in a bit!", Papyrus announced, "You all just sit tight."

   "Ready to bolt out the nearest fire exit.", Frisk mumbled to Sans. The skeleton chuckled. The two 'expert chefs' (plus Mettaton) made their way to the kitchen. Alphys found another seat in the living room. Frisk had learned to always keep enough furnishings for as many people as the fire code allowed in one room. Alphys smiled at Frisk.

   "What is it this time?", she asked.

   "Cereal.", he replied.

   "Oh dear.", she giggled, "At least we know it's likely to be edible."

   "So how'd you fare at the celebrations?", Sans asked her. She flinched and laughed nervously.

   "W-well... I um.... I... I didn't go..."

   "Aw c'mon, you'd look great in formal wear.", Sans prodded, "And I know for a fact you have the world's flashiest dress in your wardrobe."

   "I-it's not  _that_ f-flashy..."

   "C'mon Sans," Frisk intervened, "don't make her  _too_ uncomfortable. Still, you two are probably the least likely candidates for going out to  _do_ stuff. Sans is just lazy, but Alphys, you're downright reclusive. You gotta learn to loosen up a bit."

   "I- I just... um..."

   She twiddled her thumbs in her usual fitful manner. Frisk had never understood what made her so apprehensive about...  **everything** _._

   "Come and get it! Or we're eating without you!", Undyne called from the kitchen. Everyone got up then picked up conversation over the cereal, which was either clumpy and thick or drowning in milk. At least they hadn't burned it. Or given it freezer burn. Or any number of ways Papyrus and Undyne found to destroy food.

   "Hey Frisk,", Undyne burbled through her mouthful of warm milk with cereal bits. She had microwaved her bowl. Because of course she had. She swallowed. "I noticed you walking out to the garden. And coming back with a certain someone..."

   She flashed her razor grin while Frisk tried and failed not to choke on the soggy clump of cereal he'd been swallowing.

   "Ooooh!", Mettaton cooed, "Who was it?"

   "Well Frisk..?", Undyne continued to prod.

   "As soon as he stops choking.", Sans intoned as he appeared behind Frisk and whacked him on the back.

   "ACK! Ugh," Frisk forced out some final wheezing coughs and cleared his throat before speaking, " _Thank you_ Sans. Now as for who was with me, I get the feeling she'd rather remain anonymous."

   "I  _saw_ you two," Undyne reminded him, "if you don't tell them, I will."

   "Who  _was_ it?!", Mettaton whined, "I love some suspense, but this is killing me!"

   "It was Chara.", Frisk said bluntly. There was about half a second of silence before the insanity ensued.

   "Ahhhh! Seriously?!?" "Frisk, y-you can't be s-serious..." "See, that wasn't so hard!" "What on Earth were you doing with the princess?" "Wow kid, I didn't think you were that smooth." "Sans! Stop that!" "What happened? Tell me tell me tell me!" "M-Mettaton!"

   "Calm down! Geez!", Frisk shouted, stopping the torrent of simultaneous comments. Once everyone had stopped talking, Mettaton spoke up.

   "So what happened?"

   Frisk sighed.

   "We talked."

   "Aaaannnnddd...."

   Frisk knew Mettaton wasn't going to stop badgering him until he gave him more details, so he simply resigned to his fate.

   "She made out with me."

   "REALLY?!" "See, totally knew it." "Frisk!" "Y-you can't possibly be  _serious_!" "Woah, wasn't expecting that."

   "Can you all just not?!", Frisk asked loudly, incredibly exasperated.

   "No.", Sans answered. Mettaton tittered with small bits of laughter as Undyne looked at him,eagerly awaiting further explanation. Papyrus looked desperately confused and Alphys was absorbed in another one of her skittish habits. Frisk just sighed.

   "So how'd it happen?", Mettaton investigated enthusiastically.

    _Well, why not!_

   "I ran into her inside and she asked me to meet her by that Falling Tree five minutes later. When I got there we talked," he held back a shiver and before he could continue, Mettaton interrupted.

   "About what?"

   Murder was probably not something to bring up over Sunday breakfast. Not to mention, it wouldn't do to tell the entire room (which consisted of a mysterious skeleton, his cinnamon roll brother, a gossiping idol, the royal scientist, and the  _captain of the royal guard_ ) that the princess was actually a serial murderer who supposedly killed people because of some reason pertaining to a ten-year-old.

   "I... forgot."

   "You're still a bad liar, Frisk.", Undyne smirked.

    _I'm all too aware of that._

   "Okay, we talked about a case I'm working on. She... gave me some clues. Then she... went off on a tangent and...", Frisk trailed off.

   "Aaaannd?", Mettaton prompted.

   "Don't be so suspenseful, kid.", Sans added.

   "And she kissed me.", despite his neutral tone, his face was burning. He looked down at his bowl.

   "EEEEEEEE AHAHAHAHHHHHH!", Mettaton squealed, "How was it?"

    _He just does not let up._

   "She's good."

   "Augh! Come on Frisk, I need details! You must relive the moment!"- _No thank you_ -"Have I not taught you how to embellish?"  _Unfortunately, yes._

   Frisk sighed and rolled his eyes. His tone as he described it was mostly flat with slight flairs of annoyance.

   "I was immobile as she advanced and our lips met. As I said before, she's good. Really good.  _Unbelievably_ good. The leaves cushioned our feet as she continued to... ugh! No. Nope, I am not doing this!"

   Frisk really wanted a glass of water. Or a bucket of ice, whichever worked to quell the stifling flush on his face.

   "Aw...", Mettaton moaned, "it was just getting good..."

   "I- I think that was p-plenty detail.", Alphys stuttered.

   "Wow, kid," Sans said, "I didn't think you had it in ya."

   "You should hear him describe a murder scene.", Undyne told him.

   "I- I'd rather not.", Alphys said.

   "Honestly Frisk," Papyrus chided, "You should be much more careful with your words, as well as your romancing of royalty."

   "Hey,  _she_ kissed me.", Frisk informed him, "I was not at all expecting or inviting it."

   "So you  _didn't_ want to kiss the princess?", Mettaton marveled, sounding almost appalled.

   "I would've stopped her if I could. But as I said, I was immobile."

   "Wow kid, pull back on the sick burns.", Sans advised.

   "Nah, I'm good."

   "I dunno, insulting the princess probably isn't the world's best idea.", Undyne added, "She looks harmless, but she'd beat a shrimp like you to a pulp."

   "I don't doubt it."

   "What tipped you off?", Undyne perked up. She always perked up at the mention of violence.

   "Well, I don't know what kind of self-defense lessons she's been getting or even if she  _gets_ self-defense lessons, but if she does, she deserves a doctorate degree, because she literally paralyzed me for the express purpose of making sure I didn't squirm while she kissed me. I still have no idea how she did it. She also threatened... or, okay, I shouldn't say threatened, she insinuated killing me right before hitting on me in  _the_ most... Agh, I need a better adjective!"

   "How  _did_ she hit on you?"

    _Mettaton, one of these days you are going to ask the wrong person the wrong question and be left without a corporeal body._

   Frisk took a deep breath as his face got hotter thinking of her words. It got progressively worse as he spoke.

   "She said, and this is a direct quote, 'I've wondered a lot of things about you, actually. How you'd look without all the droopy clothes, for instance. Or how you would sound.... sound m..moaning... or ho- how your ssskin wou- w-' augh! What is  _wrong_ with her!?"

   Sans chuckled as Mettaton dissolved into a series of mirthful chortles and Papyrus somehow managed to blush. Monster anatomy, honestly. Alphys was also blushing much more intensely, so that her usual sunny yellow complexion turned a very lava-like red-orange. Undyne just sort of looked on, dumbfounded, and Sans was still behind Frisk, kind of looking over his left shoulder at the rest of the crew.

   "So," Mettaton recovered, "will you be able to finish the phrase?"

   Frisk looked at him flatly.

   "How you skin would feel against mine."

   "Oooohh!"

   Frisk rolled his eyes.

   "I'm also relatively sure she's recreationally stalking me."

   "So  _that's_  what she does!", Undyne exclaimed.

   "You knew?"

   "I knew she snuck off the grounds, but I figured she'd be fine."

   "Yeah. Fine.", Frisk repeated, thinking of the recent string of murders Chara happened to be responsible for.

   "H- how do you... um...", Alphys warbled, "how do you know?"

   "She told me."

   "Come now Frisk," Papryrus intervened, "I'm sure the princess meant something entirely different!"

   "If you say so."

   "How about we ch-change the subject!", Alphys blurted.

   "That's a wonderful idea.", Frisk reciprocated.

   "Well, what else will we talk about?", Sans asked, making his way back to his seat.

   "Uuuhhhm Alphys!", Frisk brightened, "Seen any new Animes recently?"

   The conversation went on as they all finished breakfast and eventually got around to doing the dishes. Once that was done, Mettaton and Papyrus decided to go to Grillby's with Sans. It wasn't easy convincing Undyne and Alphys to play board games instead of watching Spice and Wolf 2 for the third time, but Frisk got them to do it. When 3:00 rolled around, they left and Frisk decided to make himself a sandwich. As he was about to sit down and eat, he heard a slight shifting sound, like someone shuffling across the linoleum. He had a feeling he knew who it was.

   "You've been here before I'm guessing," he said, "you don't have to act so scarce."

   "How hospitable.", replied a female voice as a pair of hands came down on Frisk's shoulders. "Any breakthroughs?"

   Frisk looked up at Chara from his seat with a disinterested expression as she grinned down at him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this chapter felt like it took forever! Even though I wrote it in, like, a week and a half. I'm not used to taking so long! (Although, now that I think about it, this is probably how long it's going to take for me to get chapters out for this story, since it requires more attention to detail than most other things I tend to write.)


	4. Chapter 4

   "Maybe.", Frisk responded blankly. Chara sat down in one of the chairs and Frisk did the same. She was wearing a green long sleeved shirt with a yellow stripe across it. He had the sneaking suspicion this wasn't the only one she owned, since he was positive it looked exactly like the one she'd worn the first through third times he'd met her. She was also still wearing the locket she'd worn last night.

   "Oh goodie," Chara burbled, "what are they?"

   "Do any of the recent homicides have something to do with Asriel?"

   "My my my, ever so astute! Yes, I grow quite concerned for my little brother, it's simply enough to drive one mad."

   "Oh, I get the feeling the madness part has been in play a little longer than whenever these 'concerns' popped up."

   "Hm hm, well, there's no way of knowing that, now is there? I'm told mad people most of the time aren't even aware they're mad."

   "Mmhm. Anything else?"

   "Yes.", she leaned closer and placed her hand on his thigh. "What would you like to do for the rest of the day?"

   Frisk leaned away. "I prefer slightly more sane company, your majesty."

   "Aw, don't be so formal.", she wrapped her arms around his waist, "I'd much prefer you call me something...  _different._ "

   "... I'm scared to ask."

   "Then you won't have to.", she came even closer and placed her mouth right next to his ear. Her breath tickled his skin as she whispered, "I was thinking something along the lines of darling, or baby... maybe nice cream, since both of us seem to be able to get you to blush so easily."

   "I hardly eat nice cream anymore.", Frisk told her, turning his head away.

   "I guess I just drop in at the right times.", Chara smiled, pulling back a little.

   "How long  _have_ you been dropping in?", Frisk turned back to her.

   "Hm... a few months now. Undyne talks about you from time to time, and I simply had to see for myself."

   "Shy?"

   "Always so perceptive, aren't we? Not to mention, I had some investigations of my own, and I would've hated it if a lovely little thing like you had to be an accessory to the crime."

   "How kind.", was all he responded with as he finally pushed her off of him, internally logging her last sentence.

   Her smile widened and she sat back down.

   "So do you have anything to do? After all, you have to get back to work tomorrow, and I'm not doing anything. Well, aside from the usual."

   "So you want to just watch me go about my business, only in a more obvious place?"

   "Unless you have other plans.", Chara purred as she walked her fingers up Frisk's arm.

   "I suppose I can't really control what you choose to do with your free time."

   Chara smirked.

   "No, I suppose you can't, but I was hoping for some more interesting suggestions."

   "Karaoke?", Frisk offered. Then something unexpected happened. She laughed. Well, not exactly laughed, more like half-snickered before emitting a few small giggles. It still surprised Frisk, and apparently Chara as well. They looked at one another for a few seconds before Frisk glanced away.

   "Well, before we do anything else," Had he just said that? "I'm going to finish my sandwich."

   This was too casual. He picked up his food and took a bite as Chara sat next to him silently. Now it was just awkward. It didn't completely make sense. He swallowed. She stood up.

   "You mind?", she asked, opening the bread box. When had she gotten there?

   "Help yourself."

   This was wrong. Or at the very least inappropriate.

   "Thanks."

   She set about making her own sandwich as Frisk continued to eat. His eyes were glued to her for no real reason. Or maybe it was all kinds of reasons. Her hands moved about with a strange grace that seemed unnatural and wrong for someone who wielded knives and killed so many people. Her hair was short and floated softly about her shoulders as if it had never come in contact with blood, let alone been tangled full of it as the juice dripped onto the matching shirt she always wore whenever she was out to kill.

   Chara turned her head and Frisk analyzed her profile. Her skin looked flawless and smooth, like it was immune to the effect of blood spatters. Her eyes were clouded, but managed to pierce through whatever it was she might set her gaze on. Her expression was mostly neutral, but there was some sort of underlying levity that she seemed privy to. It was like she was taunting those in the general vicinity with some suspicious joke.

    _She's gorgeous._

   When Frisk realized what he'd just said, (or rather, thought) he jerked and quickly turned away. He saw Chara turn around out of the corner of his eye and could just make out the mischievous grin that spread across her face. It somehow helped him catch the breath he hadn't known he'd lost. What was wrong with him?

   She came closer and he swallowed. Had he had that bite in his mouth the entire time?

   She sat down and began to eat. He decided now would be a good time to finish his own food. Once they were done, Frisk couldn't find anything to do besides staring off at nothing. Chara turned her head to him.

   "I vote we move this visit to the living room."

   Frisk nodded and stood up, not looking directly at her. The two of them ended up sitting next to each-other on the couch. Frisk reached over to the side table for the remote but Chara reached over him and placed her hand on his wrist. He recoiled from her touch, despite some incredibly stupid part of him that wanted to take her hand. She smiled knowingly. God, he hated this woman.

   "I was thinking we could try something else."

   She wrapped her arms around him once more and he was at a complete loss for what to do. She pressed her lips against his cheek and proceeded to move down to his neck. It was all Frisk could do to keep his breathing even.

   "Chara... stop.", he hissed.

   She paused to look up at him.

   "What's wrong?", she asked innocently.

    _As if you don't know._

   "Just... I don't...", he was at a complete loss for words. She pouted up at him.

   "I don't see the big deal.", her eyes traveled down to the skin on his neck and her mouth twisted up in a sort of appraising smirk. "You're simply perfect, you know.", her eyes had a death grip on his once they flickered back upward, "I thought you should know it."

   All Frisk could do was stare at her. She chuckled lightly before whispering into his ear,

   "So, may I?"

   "I- I don't... I just... what is with you?"

   "I may be a murderer, but I'm also human. Don't you know the feeling? When you just have to hold someone and kiss them until neither of you can remember your names?"

   "I can't say I do."

   "Well... it's incredibly hard to control."

   "I happen to have a higher dosage of that in my system. Unlike you who seems to have a deficiency in the stuff."

   "Heh heh, well you still haven't answered."

   "I'd rather you not."

   She made that strangled moan-ish sound in the back of her throat that most people use when they're disappointed and possibly annoyed before simply curling around his arm and leaning her head on his shoulder.

   "Fine. So do you want to see what's on?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voila! The new chapter!  
> (also, I have no earthly idea why the note from chapter one keeps appearing beneath all the chapters, sorry about that!)


	5. Chapter 5

   Frisk walked into his office and went to his desk. He felt himself relax. This weekend had not been at all what he was used to, and he was glad to be in his element. He sat down and opened the drawer where he always kept his most urgent cases. Right at the top was Chara's. He pulled out some scratch paper and began to add to it. He laid down all the small bits of information Chara had given him.

    _concerned for Asriel      investigating_

   It was then that he realized there was really nothing else to write down. He sighed.

    _This is going to be the death of me._

   "Good morning.", a willowy voice came from the smaller desk to his side. Frisk turned his head to see Napstablook in his usual spot.

   "Morning. How was your Sunday?"

   "Nice... Mettaton came to visit in the afternoon."

   "That's nice."

   "How about yours?"

   Frisk didn't completely know how to respond to that. He looked away from his ghost friend and over at the office's door. He could see the backwards black print on the other side of the fogged window.

   "It was... hectic."

   Frisk decided not to elaborate. He instead focused his attention on Chara's case. He'd thought about it last night, and it seemed most likely that she was trying to do something she found important that concerned Asriel, so it followed that the circumstances were more than a bit dire, if she was killing people just because of it. The problem was, Frisk had no idea what 'it' was. Was it just her overreacting? Was it  _Asriel_ overreacting? Maybe there was blackmail involved. But if that was the case, what kind of blackmail would someone kill someone else over? What Chara had said about investigating made Frisk think it was probably some perceived threat to Asriel, not that he could conceive of anyone who'd want to hurt him. However, that was when he finally thought of something he could do.

   "Napstablook," Frisk said standing up from his desk, "call me if anyone comes in, I'm going out to do some investigating."

   And with that, he was out the door and heading to the victims' relatives and friend's houses for another round of interrogation.

-+-

   Frisk walked into Grillby's sometime around five pm. The atmosphere was greasy, casual, warm, and just slightly drunken, like it always was. The old wood flooring, which had long since been hopelessly worn away by the indiscernible amount of people constantly walking, running, stumbling, and occasionally brawling on top if it, creaked politely beneath Frisk's feet. He walked directly towards the bar, ruminating over his new information.

   Each of the victims routinely went off to do things on Mondays and Wednesdays that always started at six o'clock. But the exact thing they did was almost always different. Two of them had said they'd joined a local singing group, one said they'd volunteered to do odd jobs for someplace that didn't even exist. Frisk sat down, wondering if he could find out where they'd really gone. The remaining possible victims- if there were any more -would meet in about an hour. But he had no clues as to where.

   A loud, prominent laugh burst out from a few seats away, making Frisk jump and turn to see what on earth could possibly be that funny. He stared blankly at what he saw next.

   Sans was, as Grillby put it, 'almost sickeningly omnipresent' at the bar, so he was no surprise. What was a surprise was who he was talking to(and also that he'd made someone genuinely laugh, especially so loud). Sitting next to Sans in the far seat from Frisk and wearing a deep purple hood, sat none other than Toriel Dreemurr. He wasn't sure what to think, and even if he was, he wouldn't have gotten his thoughts straight before Sans (being the freaky, seemingly omnipotent skeleton that he was) turned towards him and started to talk to him.

   "Hey, if it isn't the main human. What'cha doin here on a Monday, you never take breaks on weekdays."

   "I... I was going to ask around about the case I've been working on the past few months."

   Sans seemed to know exactly which case Frisk meant, because he lost some of his lighthearted demeanor. Before anything else could be said, though, Toriel jumped in.

   "You know this human, Sans?"

   Sans turned to her, smiling like the subject of death hadn't been partially present half a second before.

   "Yeah, he's a detective. A workaholic, too. Or I guess if your line of work is looking for answers he might fit under the label of _search_ -aholic."

   Toriel snickered and Frisk marveled internally at her ability to find legitimate comedy in Sans's puns. Externally, he rolled his eyes and rested his head in his hand, propping his elbow on the bar.

   Sans then turned back to Frisk.

   "Frisk," He gestured towards him, "Toriel," He moved his hands over to the queen, "Toriel," Sans turned back to her, "Frisk.", moving his arms back towards Frisk.

   "It's a pleasure to meet you Frisk.", Toriel smiled brightly.

   "You too, your majesty."

   She blinked before bringing her finger to her lips and winking.

   "Shhh. I'm undercover at the moment, it would be most unfortunate if it were blown."

   Frisk thought for a second before deciding to play along.

   "But of course, how careless of me. I'll remember to be more careful in the future."

   They smiled at each-other and Sans began to speak again.

   "So Frisk," a mischievous smirk crossed the monster's skull, and Frisk knew he wasn't going to like what Sans was going to say next, "care to tell Tor over here about your weekend?"

    _Tor?_

   "I went to the party at the palace on Saturday and spent Sunday morning with this frustrating pile of bones and my other completely insane friends."

   Toriel tittered lightly as Sans raised his nonexistent eyebrows. When Toriel stopped giggling, she gave Frisk a slightly more analytical look. Then a light seemed to go on in her head.

   "You wouldn't happen to be the boy my Chara met in the garden sometime during the party, would you?"

   Frisk stifled a groan while Sans's grin broadened. He also tried and failed to ignore the flickering feeling of confounding, hot emotions somewhere deep in his chest.

   "I suppose I would."

   "Aha! I kept thinking you looked familiar, you look so different without formal clothes, not to mention the lighting here isn't quite the same as back in the ballroom. But I have to ask you," She leaned in closer, "what exactly were you two doing out there? Chara acted like she was giving me a straight answer, but I've been able to read that girl since she was twelve, and I know she wasn't telling me something. So what did you two talk about?"

   Frisk decided it would be best to get the awkward part over with.

   "She wouldn't have happened to mention she kissed me, did she?"

   " _What?"_

   She looked at him in disbelief for half a second before her furry features lit up in alarm.

   "Huh? But- I- oh dear...", Toriel was trying her best to compose herself while Sans looked like he was debating rather or not it was appropriate to laugh. Frisk decided now would be a good time to change gears and turned to the other side of the counter.

   " 'Ey Grillby!", he called over. The bright, flickering bartender turned to the young man and made his way over. "Have you seen or heard anything lately? Specifically about meetings around an hour from now on Mondays and Wednesdays."

   Grillby blinked in an affirmative way. He hardly ever talked, since he didn't speak very good english. This was mainly due to the fact he was made up mostly of fire. His mouth couldn't form the syllables perfectly the majority of the time, and you had to talk to him quite frequently to be able to decipher what he was saying. Luckily for Frisk, he'd been doing it since he was ten.

   "Where?"

   "... Hotland, something about hell's kitchen."

   Although to Toriel or anyone else who was not well-versed in Grillby, it sounded something like, 'Haufam, shonmfig aboh hes kliseh."

   Frisk nodded.

   "Hotland, hell's kitchen."

   Toriel, who looked completely astonished that Grillby had even spoken, turned to Frisk with wide eyes.

   "You understood that?"

   Frisk shrugged.

   "If you listen hard enough and spend enough time talking to him, it gets easier to understand. Sans got it, didn't 'cha?"

   "Yep.", the skeleton confirmed. Frisk then hopped off his barstool.

   "Well, I have a meeting to eavesdrop on and possibly some people to shadow."

   He turned towards the door before Toriel stopped him.

   "Hold on for a second."

   Frisk turned his head to her.

   "Did anything else happen?"

   She was giving him that Mom voice that all mothers just seem to have, and he definitely knew she meant business.

   "Well, I've been scrambling around for answers after the clues she gave me. I assume she did tell you about our topic of conversation."

   "Yes."

   "Good. I'll be going then."

   He started to walk out before Toriel called over to him.

   "Wait!"

   He stopped.

   "Be careful. She'll definitely want to see you in one piece the next time you see each-other."

   Frisk didn't completely know how to respond to that.

   "Of course.", his voice was thankfully perfectly natural as he resumed walking. "And you take care of Sans, Papyrus will want  _him_ back in one piece too."

   The last thing he heard before shutting the door behind him was Toriel's jovial chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sooo sorry this took me so long to get around to! I love the way this chapter turned out, though. In my defense I was suffering severe writer's block for, like, a week and it's not summer yet.  
> I will try my best to get the other chapters out a little faster from now on. (though I make no promises)


	6. Chapter 6

   Frisk knew Napstablook was probably worried sick. Now was one of those times he wished he had a working cell phone. 

   Frisk was just down the road from Alphys's lab, picking up street chatter. Most of it was the regular vapid small talk he'd grown to expect from residents of the Hotland district, but now he was following a small, low-talking cluster of people. They'd seemed to stand out to him immediately, and when he strained to listen, he'd heard something about losing support. They seemed like the ideal leads.

   Frisk had always had average stealth, but he could never really perfect it. He was afraid that could be a stumbling block. Especially since the other passing conversations were much louder and more distracting from the hushed tones of the approximately six people walking in front of him. As they continued to talk, Frisk felt there was something important he wasn't noticing about them.

   He studied their clothes. Not all that similar, really. They were all different heights, sizes, and had different hair and skin colors, so that wasn't it. Then a Vulcan talking to a girl in a cowboy hat padded by and it hit him. All of these people were humans.

    _Come to think of it, all the other victims have been humans, too. There wasn't any monster dust at any of the crime scenes._

   Interesting.

   He was right to worry about his stealth, however, because as he'd been trying to figure out what needed identifying, he'd gotten closer to the group. And they noticed. However, where his stealth failed him, his fashion sense succeeded. Frisk, despite much prodding from Mettaton, had never really dressed 'like a detective'. In fact, he wore a long sleeved striped shirt and cargo pants wherever he went, and today was no exception. He didn't even own a fedora. Which, when he thought about it, would actually be kind of cool.

   At the moment, though, he needed to find an excuse to be so obviously observing a cluster of people. Because although his attire didn't immediately give him away, he wasn't completely above suspicion, considering he was kind of following them. Actually, not kind of, he was totally following them.

   "Oh, hey. I was wondering if you guys know where the MTT resort is? I'm a bit new here, and you guys just sorta seem like the type of people who would know about these sorta things."

   Frisk had always been a rather convincing actor.

   "Um...", a woman said dryly. She seemed to be incredibly weirded out by his sudden string of words. Another person next to her stepped closer and said,

   "Yeah, you just keep going down this road, take a left, two rights, second left, and it's a few blocks out from hel- guh!"

   One of the others had elbowed the guy in the gut.

   "What he meant to say was, from MTT Studios."

   "Really? My friend told me you take two lefts then two rights."

   "Your friend is right.", the first woman told him, "This one just has no sense of direction."

   "Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, you shouldn't need directions when you're talking about  _that monster_. I'm pretty sure it has signs posted everywhere within a mile radius."

   "He.", Frisk corrected.

   "Huh?"

   "Mettaton might be a robot, but he's at least entitled to actual pronouns."

   "Aw, c'mon, don't tell me you're one of those rabid fans of his."

   "No way, he scares me half to death sometimes. But how would you feel if someone called you 'it'?"

   "Well, as much as I'd love this conversation to continue," another one of them cut in, "we're gonna be late if we keep dilly dallying."

   "Right. We gotta go. You remember the directions?"

   "Two lefts, two rights, and I should see the building by then."

   "Right."

   "Cool. Gotta go, see ya!"

   Frisk dashed down the street before any of them could say a word, planning to get to the studio and find out more there. Mettaton might know something. There was nothing that went on in that studio that Mettaton didn't know about, and at the moment it was the best lead he had.

   It was then that Frisk recalled the way the person had referred to Mettaton. _that monster; it_

 _What could that mean? I mean, yes, Mettaton doesn’t technically count as a human, but not too many people think he’s more than a scary advanced robot. Heck, I only found out he was related to Napstablook a few months ago. Maybe they're just really,_ really _racist. … Wait a minute._

   He stopped running and something came to him.

   “Racist… humans… losing support. Asriel... This is bad.”

   He started running faster. When he got to the gate, the dog guards sniffed at him and let him through. Frisk came by rather often. He had the scars to prove it.

   It was five thirty-five. Mettaton would have just started taping his game show, then at six he’d film the news, and at seven he’d start his cooking show. He was an incredibly busy robot. Being an idol was rather hard work.

   Frisk went straight to sound stage three. Mettaton had just finished his introduction and the crowd was deafening.

   “And now I need a volunteer!”, Mettaton bubbled enthusiastically over the studio audience.

_Victim, more like._

   Mettaton’s eyes roamed the crowd and brightened when they landed on Frisk.

_Oh no._

   Frisk had personal experience with being Mettaton’s guinea pig. The first time they’d met he was fifteen and he’d just met Alphys. She started talking about her latest project (Mettaton) and Mettaton decided that was the perfect time to come crashing through the wall. Scar number one, somewhere on his upper arm.

   “Frisk, you never come by the studio!”

   Mettaton was getting that mischievous gleam in his eye that Frisk had learned to avoid at all costs. Everyone in the studio turned their heads straight to him. He smiled nervously. He was perfectly fine with crowds and attention, but it was never a good thing when Mettaton was involved.

   “Oh, come now, don’t be shy! Our older viewers are sure to want to see how you’ve grown! For those of you not familiar with our lovely little Friskers, he was featured in some of the earlier programs ages ago when the studio had a much smaller budget.”

_And way less safety measures._

   Someone's camera flashed in his face.

   “He was just adorable, you should’ve seen him! I’m sure the videos are floating around on the internet somewhere for you darlings to see for yourselves.”

   Frisk was almost at the stage by then, and Mettaton yanked him up the stairs and held him in place next to him.

   “Say hello to all our lovely viewers, Frisk!”

   Mettaton moved the mic over to Frisk.

   “... Hello.”

   “Oh come now Frisk, the least you could do is smile for once!”

   Frisk stubbornly raised one corner of his lip and discretely glared at the robot who still had him in his metallic grip. Mettaton sighed dramatically.

   “Honestly Frisk, I’m sure your little girlfriend is watching, you could at least smile for her, I’d bet she’s never even _seen_ you smile.”

   The crowd ‘ooohh’ed and Frisk bristled.

   “I’d much rather get on with this game.”, Frisk growled through his teeth. He’d lost his patience for Mettaton’s games when he was sixteen.

   “Oh of course! We do have a schedule to adhere to!”

   Mettaton finally released Frisk and waved his hand to the set.

   “Today is a classic! A color tile puzzle! If you remember correctly, Frisk, this was one of the puzzles you’ve done before, so I’m sure you don’t need to review the rules!”

   “Yes. I do. That was years ago.”

   “Oh, of course I suppose I can’t expect you to have an idyllic memory. Besides, our lovely viewers need to know what’s going on, don’t they?”

   The crowd cheered.

   “Red tiles are positively incorrigible, so there’s no way you’re getting past those grumps. The yellow tiles will give you one nasty shock, and if you step on any of the green tiles, it’ll trigger a monster attack! The orange tiles make you smell like oranges, which the piranhas in the blue tiles will just adore! Unless of course the blue tile you happen to step on is next to a yellow tile, in which case you’ll also get electrocuted! Watch your step on those purple ones, ‘cause they’ll make you slide right over to the next tile, and it’ll make you smell like lemons, something -need I remind you- piranhas _hate_. And if you’re wondering about the pretty pink ones, those are perfectly safe! You might want to make sure you step on them more often. Any questions?”

   “Just one. How are you so insane?”

   “Oh-ho-ho~! It’s quite simple dear! I just am.”

   Frisk rolled his eyes and stepped up to the blank tile field. The tiles started erratically changing colors and Frisk looked over to Mettaton.

   “Remind me when I regain consciousness that I came here to ask you about something.”

   “But of course!”

   The tile colors snapped into one stable floor puzzle. This would be fun.

   The first tile was pink.

   Then Frisk made his way to the next tile, which was blue.

   At that moment, he heard a loud ‘fwoosh’. This couldn’t possibly be dangerous in the least.

   “Oops! I forgot to mention you’re going to be followed by a fire wall! You should be just fine dear.”

   Of course. Frisk scanned the next tiles to try and quickly assess his next move.

-+-

   Frisk was breathless, and the heels of his combat boots were singed when he finally got through the infernal death trap. He straightened up only to have Mettaton whack him on the back, disturbing his already precarious balance. He nearly fell on the floor and his head was spinning.

   "Very good Frisk! Everybody, give him a big hand!"

   The noise from the crowd only made it worse. Mettaton helped him straighten out and smiled encouragingly. Frisk could never put his finger on why, but it had always bugged him that Mettaton was taller than him.

   "And now, we must cut to a message from our sponsors! I'll see you beauties after the break!"

   Mettaton blew a kiss to the camera and held his bright anime-smile until the little red 'On Air' light went out. He then turned to Frisk.

   "I'm sorry about your boots, dear. But I'm sure nobody will really notice."

   Frisk had finally gotten himself in order and could stand on his own. He looked up at Mettaton and stuck his hands in his pockets.

   "So, I wanted to ask you something important."

   "Oh, right, that. Well, what is it?"

   "Have you caught wind of anything related to 'hell's kitchen'?"

   "Hell's kitchen...? Oh! I heard Stacy telling Woshua that she'd heard Martin talking to Shyren about Muffet's bakery and how he'd overheard Muffet mumbling about how she didn't like her bakery being compared to hell's kitchen and she only tolerated them because they paid so well."

   “Muffet… this doesn't make- wait. Maybe it does. But still…”

   “What is it that's going on in that head of yours, Frisk.”

   “Oh, nothing. Nothing I can’t handle at least.”

   “You've said that before, darling.”

   “And I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

   Mettaton sighed.

   “Knock ‘em dead, darling.”

   “I’m kind of trying to avoid that.”

   Mettaton giggled.

   “Well, then I’ll do it for you. But not before I finish the program. Speaking of which,” he turned to the rest of the sound stage, “WE'RE BACK ON AIR IN TWO!”

   Frisk smirked internally and walked over to the exit. He looked at his watch. Five forty-five. Napstablook was definitely freaking out right now.

 


	7. Chapter 7

   Frisk had always been immune to Muffet's creep factor. He was never sure why. Maybe it was just that he didn’t share the world's universal revulsion for spiders. Maybe he was just way too desensitized to creepy, scary, spooky, and gory things in general. Whatever the reason was, the main negative emotion he got from Muffet was frustration. She had always been one of those ‘buy something or leave’ type of people, and the first time he’d met her, he'd nearly gotten killed. This actually probably _should_ have scarred him, but by then he’d survived _Mettaton_ and that had scarred him plenty.

   He couldn’t really blame her for it, though. She had an impossibly large family to feed. As he walked into the almost painfully purple bakeshop, he noted that, like always, it was mostly empty and covered with cobwebs.

   “Good evening,” Muffet purred, “What would you like to buy?”

   Frisk walked up to the counter.

   "A spider donut and some information."

   "And how would you like to pay for that?", Muffet persisted. Frisk reached into one of his many pockets and paid the steadily smiling spider girl.

   "Thank you very much.", Muffet trilled softly, pocketing the money. She didn't own a cash register. Didn't really need one, either. 

   A few spiders crawled their way out of the woodwork and scuttled about for a while before presenting Frisk with a small round confection.

   "Now what is it that you need to know?"

   "What do you know about a meeting that would be scheduled to take place ten minutes from now that happens regularly on Mondays and Wednesdays?"

   "Hm, seems you know quite a bit about it already."

   "Yes, but the question remains, what do you know about it?"

   Frisk always had to be careful with his words around Muffet, or she might start charging him extra. She would be way too smart for her own good if she weren't also incredibly terrifying to just about everyone, which generally kept her out of serious trouble.

   "Well, they say their meeting place is 'hidden by the dump near hell's kitchen'. That's all I'm saying, unless you have more coins to cough up."

   "While I do, that's all the information I needed. Here.", he dropped a tip onto the counter. She smiled in a slightly more genuine manner.

   "Thank you, come again!"

   Frisk remembered to pick up his absurdly expensive donut on the way out and went straight toward Bratty and Catty's.

-+-

   "OMG Bratty, is that who I, like, think it is?"

   "Like, I think it totally is Catty!"

   "Nice to see you, too.", Frisk said flatly. The girls just giggled. At least, Frisk referred to them as girls in his head.

   In actuality, they were a few years older than him. Next to no one would be able to tell though, since he'd gotten so much taller than them since he was thirteen, and they had never really stopped being the living embodiment valley girl seventeen-year-olds. They were one of the few things in Frisk's life, second only to Alphys's love of anime and Papyrus's lack of cooking skills, that remained universally constant no matter how much older anybody got or how much time passed.

   "Oh, yeah, totally.", Bratty drawled.

   "So, like, what brings you here and junk?", Catty wondered, fixing her cutoffs.

   "Well, I was wondering if you two knew about any meetings nearby that would happen around..."

   He checked the time. 6:05.

   "Now."

   "Oh, like, _right now_ , right now?", Catty asked.

   "Or, uh, starting like five minutes ago and also now, or whatever?", Bratty finished. They always finished each-other's statements. It was downright spooky sometimes. Just as what Bratty had said was suspiciously accurate.

   "Five minutes ago and also now.", Frisk answered.

   "Oh yeah. We, like, have no idea what you're talking about?", Bratty lied. If anyone was a worse liar than Frisk, it had to be Bratty and Catty.

   Frisk gave her a flat look.

   "Oh really?"

   "Yeah," Catty confirmed much too quickly, "and you totally wouldn't find anyone, uh..."

   "Anywhere near the resort or, like, close to the City Core."

   "Yeah, I mean, it's not like there are any, uh, secret places where anyone could hold a secret meeting about secret stuff that they wouldn't want someone to know 'cause it's, like, a secret and junk."

   "Yeah, like, totally."

   This was interesting. Frisk wold probably be laughing right now if this wasn't a life and death situation. At least he had a search radius and something to look for. He faked a dejected sigh and stuck his hands into his pockets, his fingers brushing against the spider donut, which he still hadn't eaten. He'd only really bought it because he'd learned Muffet was more loose lipped when he actually bought the baked goods and didn't really plan on eating it, so he pulled it out of his pocket and broke it in half.

   "Here.", he held the halves out to the girls and the pieces of the dismantled confection were quickly swiped from his hands and subsequently guzzled down into non-existence.

   "Wow, like, thanks a lot, and all that!", Catty chimed, smiling brightly.

   "Yeah, that was great.", Bratty agreed.

   "Good. Now, I should probably get going. See you around.", he said waving.

   "BYE!!!", Catty waved spastically.

   "Yeah, see ya and stuff!", Bratty called after him as he continued out if the alley.

   Frisk turned the corner and-

   "Hiya, kid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So I now have a definitive estimate for when I might get chapters out!  
> I'm probably going to take around ten to twelve days, unless something comes up or I begin to suffer severe writer's block! So yeah, expect that to be the sort-of-not-really schedule.  
> Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

   Frisk still wasn't completely sure how he'd gotten there, but he was now in the dining lounge of MTT Resort with Sans. Honestly, Sans's shortcuts were the most insane things Frisk had ever encountered. At any other time, he'd probably start firing questions at the skeleton, which would probably be met with infuriatingly vague responses. However, Frisk's mind was more preoccupied by the fact that this was probably the worst time for Sans to do one of his...  _things_ that he did.

   "Frisk! There you are! I was hoping Sans would come and get you!"

   Chara stood up from the table as Frisk quickly turned his head from her to Sans and back. This was not the best time for things to happen faster than he could follow.

   "I dropped Toriel off and the princess asked if I could drag you here.", Sans explained before Frisk could even ask. He'd always been better at reading Frisk than most people. He was also currently smirking up at Frisk as Chara walked across the room to them.

   "Well, I didn't say drag exactly.", Chara corrected. She was wearing one of those sleeveless shirts that wouldn't exactly qualify as a tank top but wasn't exactly a short sleeved shirt either that had a turtle neck, and a skirt. A really,  _really_ short skirt.

   Frisk forced his eyes away and brought them back to her face a second or two later. She seemed to notice and subsequently smirked. His stomach lurched and his heart beat faster as those same burning feelings seemed to torch his insides. All he could really do was glare softly in return.

   "So what ever is the occasion, princess?"

   "Oh, come now Frisk, haven't I already told you to be less formal?", Chara cooed in response, stopping about a foot away from him, which was about forty-nine less feet than he was comfortable with.

   "I suppose you did."

   Somewhere along the line, Sans had disappeared in his confounding manner, leaving them standing in the middle of the lounge. It was almost like they were staring each other down. With Frisk giving Chara his deadpan glare and Chara simply smirking at him cooly. If he looked closely enough, Frisk could almost see something else behind her eyes. Not that he could, let alone wanted to identify it.

   Chara sighed and briefly closed her eyes before reclaiming eye contact.

   "I was wondering how far you'd gotten in one day."

   "Far enough to where I have somewhere to be."

   "Oh? So you found out about the meetings near hell's kitchen."

   "Yes. Now if you don't mind," Frisk turned away and started out of the room, but Chara grabbed his wrist. All of his nerves immediately told him to yank his arm away as hard as he could. All of them except the ones in contact with her hand, which seemed like they couldn't make up their mind.

   "Anything else? I'd like some details."

   The ire that bubbled to the forefront of his consciousness was most definitely hate.

   "So you can murder everyone at the meeting rather than, oh I don't know, give them due process of law?"

   "Oh? Now why on Earth would potential victims in a string of serial murders need due process of law?"

   Frisk turned around to face her. "Maybe because they're also suspects of rebellion."

   She seemed surprised for once. Frisk felt strangely accomplished. 

   "Yes.", her face relaxed into something slightly more neutral. 

   "I'll ask you again. Why are you doing this?"

   She kept his stare and her neutral mask. Something was telling Frisk this wasn't like her. It wasn't. She was much more expressive than this. Even when she was being weirdly manipulative or putting up a front, she used some type of emotion. What was going on?

   "I don't trust anyone else to end it.", her voice sounded hollow.

   She let go of his wrist.

   "... What do you mean?"

   "Oh, come on, Frisk, you're smart, you should be able to figure it out.", she taunted him. She was finally showing emotion. Part of him felt... better? He wasn't really thinking about it at the time.

   "Well, assuming they are in fact planning something, you seem to be murdering the people involved to prevent anything from going any further. What I want to know is why you don't just turn them in."

   "Because then people would get ideas. Maybe they had sympathizers that could start something else, or break them out, because I know nobody would want to put them to death just for rebelling against us. In fact, I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad would immediately give up and try to compromise when I just know that would never work, and frankly, I don't understand why anyone would want to rebel. Dad is an awesome king, Mom is the best. Asriel is basically a cinnamon roll, and I'm pretty sure I haven't pissed too many people off. At least not enough for someone to want to stage a coup or whatever these creeps are trying to do."

   Frisk observed her closely and turned her words over in his head. At the moment, she was looking bitterly at the floor. It occurred to Frisk that this was the first time he'd ever actually seen her angry. For some reason, this made him stop actually thinking about their conversation. There was something that seemed to squirm in his chest. It was almost like the feeling he got whenever he thought about Chara. Of course, he didn't have any idea what it was about, so he couldn't identify this either. It just made everything all that much more maddening. Chara looked back at him.

   "Nothing to say?"

   He brought himself back to reality.

   "Not really. I still haven't found where this meeting place even is and," He checked his watch yet again, "I've got about half an hour to figure it out. Unless I just wait until Wednesday."

   "Mind if I keep you company?", she stepped a little closer. His heart jumped a little for some reason. He was pretty sure his figurative consciousness would be sore from how much he'd mentally kicked himself since Saturday.

   "Mind not killing anyone?"

   She lifted the corner of her mouth and chuckled slightly.

   "I suppose I could postpone my rampaging. If you insist."

   She wrapped her arms around his right, then leaned her head against his shoulder. He was relatively sure this was the same position that two characters from this anime Undyne had found -Durara or something, he was pretty sure he'd gotten the "ra's" wrong- were in pretty much 100% of the time. One of them happened to be an insane stalker girl. Unbelievable.

   He took a deep breath and kept his face detached as he walked out, stuffing his hands in his pockets to make Chara's bulk around his arm less awkward.

   "So where do you know they're not?", he asked her.


	9. Chapter 9

   Frisk looked down at his watch. 8:30. There was no way the meeting was still going on. He sighed and Chara looked up at him with her arms still wrapped around his.

   "Don't worry. They meet again on Wednesday, don't they?"

   He returned her gaze. He was just too burnt out at the moment to hate her any more today.

   "Yeah. I guess they do. Shouldn't you be getting home?"

   "Aren't you going to walk me? Honestly Frisk, it's like nobody taught you any manners."

   "Hey, I was raised by  _Sans_ and  _Papyrus_. You expect me to know how to act around a lady?"

   "Wait, what?"

   She seemed desperately confused.

    _She's adorable. AUGH! What am I saying?_

   "Yeah.", Frisk replied, "Well, Undyne and Alphys sort of helped too. I figured the stalker would know these things."

    _Good grief, it's happening again._

   "Hey, I'm a stalker, not a creep. I've only been spying on you for a month or so, not gone through your medical records or something. How does this not come up in conversation more often?"

   "... I actually have no idea."

   "Wow, that's a first."

   "Are you kidding?", he smiled at her, "Having no idea is basically my entire existence."

   Her eyes went wide and she looked completely wonderstruck. Frisk wasn't sure why for a second before realizing that Mettaton was right, he'd never actually smiled at Chara before. He quickly turned his head away and forced his mouth into a straight line. Now was not the time to be chummy with the serial murderer.

   "Well, anyway, I'll walk you back home, I guess."

-+-

   The walk there was essentially silent. When they got to the front garden, Undyne was on post.

   "Hey, Frisk!", she called over when she recognized him. She paused for a second when she saw Chara and a mischievous smirk crossed her face. "I see you walked your girlfriend home."

   "Oh, you mean the stalker attached to my arm?"

   Undyne snickered and Chara puffed out her cheeks.

   " _Frisk_."

   "Chara."

   He couldn't help the corners of his mouth turning up. She blinked and paused for a second before smiling back. How anyone's face could twist itself into a psychotic grin one day then make such a small genuine expression the next completely amazed Frisk.

   "Alright, lovebirds, I think the queen's gonna get worried if Chara's not inside soon."

   The castle doors suddenly opened and a small green and white figure dashed out.

   "Chara!"

   Chara lost her grip on Frisk's arm and took a few steps back as she was attacked by the furry streak.

   "Why'd you leave in the middle of the show? Where'd you go? How come you didn't say anything?", Asriel finally turned his head and saw Frisk. "Aren't you the volunteer from the game show?"

   Frisk and Chara looked from Asriel to each-other and back for a few seconds before Frisk finally found something to say.

   "I'm assuming she was looking for me. She went to MTT Resort. I'm pretty sure she just didn't think to say anything, and no, I did not volunteer, Mettaton just seems to find me the ideal victim for his insane death puzzles."

   Asriel blinked and thought about Frisk's string of sentences before smiling.

   "So who's your girlfriend?"

   Neither of them knew how to answer this when Undyne finally decided to put her two cents in.

   "Look up."

   Asriel was confused, but followed Undyne's directions anyway. Chara smiled down at him nervously and Asriel gasped, detaching himself from her torso.

   "Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend?!"

   "What all this?", a deep voice asked from the doorway. Undyne turned towards it first and stood at attention. The other three turned as well. Asriel smiled brightly at his father while Chara and Frisk weren't entirely sure what to do.

   "Chara's got a booyfriieeend!", Asriel answered.

   "Hm?", Asgore raised his eyebrows and looked from Frisk to Chara. "Is that so?"

   "Well...", Frisk wasn't entirely sure what to do.

   "Um...", Chara didn't seem to know either.

   "Gorey honey!", a voice called from inside, "What's keeping you?"

   "Tori, were you aware Chara had a boyfriend?"

   "Hm? You wouldn't be talking about Frisk, would you?", Toriel asked as she walked into the doorway, wearing a pink lacy apron. "Oh! Hello Frisk!"

   Chara looked over to Frisk.

   "You met my mom? And said you were my boyfriend? Why was I not informed?"

   "Oh, it was just this afternoon, really.", Toriel told her. "If you remember Chara, you stopped Sans when he dropped me off at home before I could tell you about it. And he never said he was your boyfriend, but I do remember him saying something about you kissing him at the party last Saturday.", Toriel raised her eyebrow at her daughter.

   "Oh...", Chara looked away.

   Asriel snickered. Chara turned to look down at him.

   "And what,  _exactly_ , are you laughing at?"

   "Oh, nothing.", he giggled.

   "Well, since you're here," Toriel said, turning to Frisk, "you might as well stay for dinner."

   "Oh no, I couldn't possibly do that! I mean, Napstablook is probably worried sick and-"

   "Oh don't worry, he was probably watching TV when you came on.", Undyne cut in, "He called from your office to ask if I'd seen you, so I asked Sans and then Chara left with him to go get you and, long story short-"

   "Too late.", he said. Undyne smirked flatly at him. She was used to this.

   "I told him you were probably perfectly safe and I'm sure he's fine now."

   "And you can call him yourself with our phone if you want.", Asgore suggested.

   "Well... um..."

   "Pleeaasse stay for dinner!", Asriel pleaded, "It gets so boring with just the four of us sometimes. Plus I wanna know,  _have_ you ever actually smiled at Chara before?"

   "Um... Well..."

   "Not until a few minutes ago, no.", Chara answered.

   "Oh?", Toriel wondered, "Why's that?"

   "Heh, well, she has told me that I'm 'much too stoic' before."

   "Oh?", Undyne prodded, her mischievous smirk from before returning, "I don't suppose that's what proceeded the-"

   "Not now!", both Frisk and Chara said in unison. They paused and looked at each-other. Asriel started outright laughing.

   "Well then," Asgore chuckled, "how about we all get inside?"

   "Wonderful idea.", Chara complied, regaining her composure. She walked through the doorway and turned to Frisk. "Are you coming?"

   "Um...", Frisk looked from person to person and internally sighed in defeat. "If you insist, princess."

   She pouted and grabbed hold of his hand.

   "Do I have to tell you not to call me that every time?"

   "It's likely."

   She sighed dramatically as the rest of the Dreemurr family walked inside and Undyne shut the door behind them. Frisk could swear he heard her laughing on the other side of the door.

-+-

   "How long have you been dating?", Ariel asked as they all passed around the food Toriel had made.

   "Ah...", Frisk looked away and his eyes fell on Chara's hand, which was still holding his beneath the table. He slowly slipped out of her hold and her hand seemed to stretch out for his before her fingers dropped and she looked over at him. Chara placed her hand in her lap and turned to Asriel.

   "I'm not entirely sure when we started, really.", she answered with a smile. Asriel tilted his head, slightly confused.

   "Not to mention, we don't go on dates. Or do much of anything really.", Frisk added. It occurred to him that he should probably be denying the fact that they were in a relationship in the first place. Why wasn't he doing that?

   "That's because you simply refuse to drop by or talk to me most of the time.", Chara told him, "I'm always starting conversations myself. It gets rather hard to think of new reasons to pop in, really."

   "You don't say."

   "Correction, I do."

   Asriel snickered.

   "You sound like one of those couples from those rom coms Papyrus watches.", he seemed to get an idea, "Hey, are you the same Frisk he talks about sometimes?"

   "It's likely. He doesn't really know any other Frisk's as far as I'm aware."

   "He told me Papyrus and his brother raised him.", Chara tossed in, "You remember Sans, don't you Azafraz?"

    _Azafraz?_

   "Really?", Asriel turned to Frisk.

   "Really."

   "Frisk dear, if you spend the whole time talking you'll never get around to eating anything.", Toriel intervened.

   "Oh, right."

   He finally put some food on his plate and took a bite. When he swallowed, he looked over at Toriel.

   "Oh my gosh, you are the best cook in the world."

   Toriel giggled and Asgore chuckled.

   "But of course.", Asgore said, "That's part of the reason I married her."

   "That and her sense of humor.", Chara tacked on flatly. Asriel cuckled.

   Frisk took another bite, savoring Toriel's cooking. Just as he was swallowing, though, he felt a soft, fluttery, warm feeling on his cheek. He whipped his head around in time to see Chara lean back into her chair and place her elbow on the table.

   "I know Mom's a great cook, but you've really gotta be more observant." ~~~~

Frisk wasn't sure rather to be appalled or embarrassed that Chara had just kissed him in the middle of dinner. He decided that could wait until after he had another bite.

   "Hmph.", was his only reply as he chewed on his dinner.

   "Oh, come now Chara," Asgore chided, "he doens't need to guard a castle or anything."

   Frisk swallowed, deciding indifference was a better option than either of the alternatives.

   "No, she's right, Undyne would totally slap me for that."

   "Oh my," Asgore replied, "I'm sure she wouldn't- Well, no, she would definitely do something like that."

   "How long have you known Undyne?", Asriel asked.

    _I'm starting to think I should bring this kid to interrogations. He asks a whole lot of questions._

   "I first heard Papyrus talking about her when I was eleven. I actually thought she was a guy at first. Then I visited the Waterfall district when I turned twelve and... and we basically burned her house down."

   "Seriously?!", Asriel gaped.

   "Yeah, she was attempting to teach me how to cook because Papyrus had dropped me off there when he was supposed to be getting his cooking lesson, except then Mettaton barged in and sort of stole him and... that was my first encounter with Undyne."

   "I remember that!", Chara exclaimed, "Undyne called from Papyrus's house and I answered the phone, and before I could say anything, the first thing she said was, 'Hey Asgore, my house kinda got burned down, could I take some leave for about a week or something?' So you're saying you caused that fire?"

   "No, I'm saying Undyne caused it when I was twelve and both of us had no idea what fire prevention was." _She still has no idea what fire prevention is._

   "So you caused the fire."

   "In my defense, Undyne scared me and her stove was literally incapable of being turned down."

   " _Undyne? She_ scared you? You were raised by skeletons and the fish lady scared you?"

   "Hey, she has two sets of razor sharp teeth and the only things I heard about her were about her being abe to suplex a boulder and throwing magical spears at anything that moved. Plus, she broke her own table while throwing one of said spears directly at me."

   "What, really?", Chara asked.

   "Yup." Frisk resumed eating.

   "Woah, your friends are the coolest.", Asriel marveled. Frisk swallowed and corrected him.

   "No, my friends are insane and I just have no one else I talk to."

   "So you're saying I'm not someone you talk to?", Chara batted her eyes and Frisk sighed in an exasperated manner on the inside.

   "No, you're someone who talks to me at inconvenient intervals."

   She frowned at him.

   "Oh really."

   Why was he scared of what she'd do next?

   "Well, someone who shows up at strange times and feels the strange need to kiss me until neither of us can remember our names."

   She seemed less miffed and he felt better. That was something he'd have to agonize over later. At the moment, he was busy kicking himself mentally once again for saying something like that in the _middle of dinner with her family_.

   "Eew.", Asriel cringed, sticking his tongue out.

   "Asriel, don't be rude.", Toriel chided.

   Frisk just slowly sank lower in his chair and continued eating so he wouldn't have to speak. This seemed to completely sate the demon that was Chara and she smirked.

   "Any other stories of burning down people's houses?"

   Frisk continued chewing.

   "Oh, don't be like that buttercup.", Asgore said, "I'm sure he wouldn't want to talk about fires all through dinner."

   Frisk nodded, straightening himself out in his chair.

   "Then what else should we talk about? Murder's not really the ideal topic of conversation, and I don't think Friskers wants to tell us any more about his past. At least, I'm assuming so."

   "Mur...der?", Asriel questioned.

   "Chara dear, not at the dinner table.", Toriel warned her.

   "Sorry!", she replied with a grin. Frisk looked down at his plate.

   "What about you? When did you first meet Undyne?", he asked her, not looking up.

   "Hm? Oh, let's see... I was... nine-ish and I was ripping up the garden. You know, like nine-year-olds do. That was when they changed the guard and Undyne walked over to me and grabbed me by the back of my shirt and lifted me two feet off the ground. I whipped my head around and she's giving me this insanely intense stare and she asked, 'Either the last guard was really dumb and you're trespassing, or you have some explaining to do.' And in my head I'm thinking,  _well, wouldn't I have to explain either way?_ , but I decided to say, 'Howdy! I'm a garden demon and have been haunting this place for the past few weeks.' And she just looks at me for the longest time and then she bursts out laughing. All the while, I'm still two feet off the ground."

   Frisk snickered.

   "To answer nine-year-old you's question," he began, "you would not have had to explain, because she would've chucked you over the gate before you could get two words out."

   Chara thought about it for a second.

   "Yeah, you're probably right. Oh! Here's a question, when did you meet  _Alphys?"_

   "How do you know he knows Alphys?", Asriel asked before Frisk could answer.

   "She stalks me.", Frisk told him.

    _"Huh?"_

   The next few minutes were spent trying to diffuse the situation.

   "So... To answer Chara's earlier question, Sans sent me to run some errands when I was about fourteen and I ended up at Alphys's. That was also the day I met Mettaton.

   "What happened was, I walked in and it looked like no one was home, so I decided to snoop around because I had no concept of privacy. Then Alphys came out of hiding and looked me over like I was a test subject in _the most_ scatterbrained manner possible before finally asking me what I was doing there. So I started talking before she stopped me in the middle of my sentence and told me to hold something while she shuffled around the things on her desk. When she finally found her clock, she freaked out and turned to me and said, 'Okay, so I'm sure you're nice and um... and all, b-but right now I have something very im-' and then Mettaton decides to burst through the wall."

   "Seriously?", Asriel marveled.

   "Dead serious."

   "This wouldn't happen to be connected to the 'earlier programs' that Mettaton mentioned earlier.", Chara prodded.

   "It's the inciting incident. So he crashes through the wall and the flying debris decides it doesn't like me and gives me a scar on the side of my leg. Well, okay, it wasn't a scar yet, but it's still there now."

   "Oh really?", Chara's lips twisted into something resembling sultry and she probably would've continued with it if they weren't two feet away from her parents.

   "Yeah. And that was how I met Mettaton and Alphys."

   "Alphys wasn't at the party on Saturday.", Asriel grumbled.

   "Yeah, she doesn't go to parties much. Even though, according to Sans, she has the world's flashiest dress in her wardrobe."

   "So, everyone seems to be done with their food.", Asgore said suddenly.

   "Huh?"

   He was right.

   "That means it's time for dessert!", Toriel chimed.

   Frisk wasn't sure rather to be happy at the prospect of dessert or nervous at the prospect of spending more time sitting next to the murderer and getting the third degree from her little brother.

-+-

   Chara saw Frisk out and stood in the doorway as he stepped out.

   "I'd very much like know what you think of me.", she said as he was walking. Frisk stopped. Undyne hadn't heard them, since she was up at the gate. They were changing the guard.

   "I think you should re-evaluate your methods, princess."

   "You never fail to be overly proper do you, my detective."

   He shrugged and walked away without another word.

   As Undyne was walking away from the gate, Frisk came out and she brightened.

   "Hey, ah, Frisk!"

   "Yes?"

   At the moment, all he wanted to do was go home and forget he had things to do.

   "On your way home, could you maybe... deliver this to Alphys?"

   She gave him a blank envelope. Frisk had a feeling he knew what was inside. 

   "Sure."

   Why she didn't deliver it herself was a mysetery, considering she had to pass through the Hotland district to get home in the first place, but Frisk decided not to question it.

   He walked one way and she walked another, probably because she was trying to avoid passing by Alphys's lab. Frisk wondered what was inside the envelope, but when he tried to open it, it was sealed way too tight. He figured that since Alphys's fingers were sharper than his, it would be easier for her to open.

   He looked down at his watch a final time. 9:45. He'd told Napstablook to close up the office at nine thirty if he wasn't back by then. Maybe Frisk would stop by his house after he delivered the letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Another super long chapter! Not the best thing in the world, but I kind of like it.


	10. Chapter 10

   As Frisk walked over to Alphys's house, trying his best to think of something to occupy his mind during the walk, he wondered how on Earth he ended up with Napstablook as an assistant. The ghost was much better suited to music than detective work. Napstablook had been his friend for as long as he could remember. Maybe the monster had just felt like he should help out when Frisk figured out what he wanted to do. Although, that line of thinking kind of made him feel guilty, so he tried to think of some other way to look at it. Maybe Napstablook liked the excitement? No, absolutely not, dumb answer. He came up on Alphys's lab and decided to discard the train of thought and pull it out later.

   Frisk wondered what he should do to get the letter to her. Knocking seemed a bit less discreet than he wanted to be, considering he didn't want to get stopped by Alphys crying because she'd gotten to the part of Madoka Magica where the plot began dragging the characters through hell. Again. Maybe he could just slide the note underneath. Suddenly, he heard shouting on the other side of the door.

   "Y- If- if you want to help so badly, why don't you try doing something yourself instead of just... w-watching from the sidelines!", Was that... Alphys? Frisk was confused. Who could she be talking to? And why was she so angry? He silently opened the door. It occurred to him that, considering what he'd said earlier, he still had no sense of privacy.

   Alphys's back was to him and Sans- _Sans?_ -Sans didn't seem to notice or care that Frisk was there. The pricks of white light in his skull that passed as his eyes dimmed.

   "I guess it's just all I can do.", Sans told Alphys.

   "Bullshit!", she yelled. Frisk started. Alphys almost never cursed. She was hardly ever angry. What was wrong? "I know for a fact you're way smarter and more powerful than I'll ever be, you don't have to make it your life's business to patronize me, Gaster!"

   Sans said nothing.

   "Alphys?", Frisk said. She jumped and spun around immediately. Had she been crying? "Alphys what's going on? Why did you use his last name? Why are you so angry?"

   "I- I...", Alphys looked between the two of them nervously. Sans was still unresponsive, and Frisk looked at her intently. She swallowed. "I'm sorry..."

   "Don't be. Just... just answer me, please."

   Alphys took a deep breath.

   "As the royal scientist, I'm expected to have the answers all the questions related to the realm of science and combinations between it and magic. I'm supposed to be able to practically defy physics and do it without thinking. I'm supposed to have so much information and so many skills that any normal person would marvel at such a feat. Plenty of other royal scientists have done it before me but... but I can't... I just..."

   There was a silence.

   "All I can do is make robots and ice cream, and I know more about anime than I do about biology... I- I'm a failure."

   Her voice waned and she started crying.

   "A-and... I can't... can't do... anything."

   "Alphys.", Frisk said walking over to her.

   "It's no use, kid.", Sans told him tightly, "You just gotta wait until the dam gets repaired."

   "But-"

   "Just drop it."

   "... Sans?"

   "Yeah?"

   "Why... Why was she-"

   "Cursing at me? Well, I don't really know where to start."

   "Just start from where she started getting angry."

   "... We were twelve years old and the royal scientist at the time fell into the power core. His name was W.D. Gaster."

   Frisk stared at Sans for a second before the skeleton continued.

   "I was taking care of Papyrus and Alphys was staying with the royal scientist at the time. She'd always liked all the science stuff as much, maybe even more than I did. So, when Asgore started looking for a new royal scientist, we both volunteered. Said the two of us could count as one scientist. Asgore decided, 'Sure, why not!' and we got the job. But..."

   "But...". Frisk prompted.

   "B-but he-...", Alphys stepped in, "Sans was always so much better than me at  _everything_. He could use p-powerful magic and got a grasp on everything quicker and... and I was just... there. M-Making sure that things stayed on track, doing the experimenting and organizing but... but Sans he-"

   "I was totally useless it what I was.", Sans interrupted, "You were working so hard and all I was doing was coming up with stupid ideas, sitting on the sidelines as _you_ put it, and you somehow managed to twist whatever dumb concept that came to me into something presentable."

   "Because your ideas were always better than mine! You always seemed to know what you were doing, and you got results for just about anything you thought of-"

   "But you're the one who was always figuring out  _why_ my stupid ideas worked!"

   "Your ideas aren't stupid!"

   "Well neither are yours, so by that logic I guess we're both failures, huh?!"

   They stared at each-other for a long time before Alphys looked down at the ground and said,

   "Yeah. Maybe... maybe we are... We weren't a very good royal scientist, were we?"

   "I don't think either of us were exactly qualified for the job. I just gave up on it. But I wasn't giving up on  _you_ , Alphys. I really thought you could handle it. I thought... I really thought you could be a great scientist."

   Alphys's eyes widened.

   "I... I... I'm not..."

   She sounded so destroyed and defeated.

   "Hey. Alphys I-"

   "I can't d-do it anymore I- I've... I've been lying to everyone."

   "Huh?", Frisk asked. The monsters looked over at him, apparently forgetting he was there.

   "I-... I'm being blackmailed."

-+-

   Frisk listened intently as Alphys explained.

   "I- I was trying to think like Sans would think, b-but bigger and more world-shaking. S-Something that would make me stand out like the other Royal Scientists had. But... but I still couldn't think of anything good. I was so frustrated and all I could do was mix samples together. But then I noticed something. I found a component in a sample of human blood that's not found in monster blood. I named it DT because... well, those were the first letters that popped into my head. It makes human's bodies more durable, but it also makes them less sensitive to magic, which is integral to monster physiology. Magic is like the glue that holds the other important parts of monsters together and makes them less fragile, but for humans, it's DT. And DT is much stronger than magic.

   "I thought, 'This is amazing! How did no one else find this out?' So I showed it to Asgore and he ... he was really truly proud of me. I had actually done something, discovered something important. And I had actually been the youngest royal scientist to do it! I, I was so excited and then... well, I read a newspaper and... and I got to the- to the obituaries. A-and, as you know, monsters have slightly shorter lifespans than humans, the exception being Boss Monsters like Toriel and Asgore who have strong magic keeping them together and tethering them to the rest of monsterkind. So, I thought, 'If DT keeps humans together, could it also make monsters live longer, too?'. So, I got some... v-volunteers and... and..."

   Alphys's voice started shaking.

   "And I... I... I! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just... I failed. I'm a failure and it's all my fault and now... now I'm being b-blackmailed for it. All because I was just... so... STUPID! I- I wasn't th-thinking and- and now- now they're all- i-it's all my fault..."

   She started crying again.

   "Alphys.", Frisk reached out to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

   "No!", she backed away from him. "N-Now you know. Okay? Y-you don't have to pretend like... like you still l-like me. Y-you hate me now, I know it! I-I was being stupid and jealous and I tried s-so hard but I failed! J-just leave me alone..."

   "No.", Sans said. He walked closer to her and took her hand. "Alphys, you're amazing. I know you are, Frisk knows you are, everyone does. You're an amazing girl, an amazing scientist, and you are the best friend I've ever had in my life."

   Frisk noticed he was still holding Undyne's note. He handed it to Alphys.

   "Here. Undyne asked me to give you this."

   She looked at the letter and slowly took it from him. After some struggling, she finally decided to just tear the paper across the top and pull the letter out. As she read it, her face got red and she covered her mouth. She almost looked like she would faint. A few more tears slipped down her cheeks.

   "I-... I..."

   "Alphys. We all love you.", Frisk reassured her, "You're smart and interesting and you're just plain amazing. We're not going to hate you because you made one mistake."

   "But... th-their... they trusted me and- and now..."

   "It's okay. You don't have to keep lying about it anymore."

   "I-"

   "Nope.", Sans interrupted, "No more talking. Who's blackmailing you and where are they now?"

   "Uhm- but... I..."

   "Sans," Frisk cut in, "as... nice as the gesture is, maybe we should all just get some sleep."

   "I ain't got muscles that need resting."

   "Yes, but Alphys and I do, and I don't think  _anyone_ wants to wake up to the news that you ended up in jail because you beat someone half to death."

   "Oh, I wouldn't beat them  _half_ to death."

   " _Sans!_ ", Alphys squawked. Sans looked over at her and chuckled.

   "There we go. Yeah, I think sleep sounds like a good idea.", he walked out of the lab. "See ya."

   Frisk stood there for a few seconds and smiled at Alphys before starting to leave.

   "Wait."

   Frisk turned around.

   "I... Thank you, Frisk."

   He smiled. Although, now that she said it, a wave of pure exhaustion hit him.

   "No proble...mh..."

   "Um, are you alright?"

   "Just... sleepy."

   "Oh! Yo-your house is so far away, why don't you just... stay here for the night?"

   "I... I'm fine..."

   "You always say that."

   "I always mean it."

   She sighed.

   "If you're fine walking across two districts to get to bed, you're fine walking ten feet and staying here."

   He smirked weakly.

   "Alright. But don't you only have one bed?"

   "Well... um... r-remember... how I said I had v-volunteers to observe."

   "Oh..."

   Frisk wan't sure how to react to sleeping in a dead person's bed.

   "D-don't worry, they won't hurt you. M-maybe make a lot of noise but-"

   "Wait, what?"

   "Huh? O-oh... you th-thought... Oh. N-no I mean, um... I think it would be better if you saw for yourself."

   Frisk followed her to the door next to the escalator. He'd never been through it before, it was always locked. Once they were inside and Alphys slid the door closed, Frisk realized they were in an elevator. Alphys pressed a few buttons and they went down, much to the protest of the elevator.

   There was a ping and the doors opened automatically to reveal a dingy, badly lit room with tiles lining the floor and walls. On either side of the door were... vending machines? One of them started rattling and Frisk jumped a bit, turning to it and stepping out, his footsteps echoing slightly. He craned his head around the machine and saw a strangely animalistic shadow just as Alphys stepped out of the elevator. The shadow got closer and Frisk leaned in, trying to see it better.

   "Mrglrrrarkk!! Mowf."

   Frisk blinked and noticed the void-ish hole through the thing's face where the sound had -sort of- come out of.

  "O-oh! Um... Frisk, this is Endogeny. Endodgeny, sit."

   The strange creature complied and sat on one of it's... many haunches.

   "Burrrrr...", it gurgled.

   "W-well, alright, but you need to be good for the r-rest of the night."

   Alphys produced a small cube of dry microwave noodles from her lab coat and tossed it at Endodgeny. The food disappeared into the void like hole through it's face. Endodgeny seemed mostly satisfied.

   "Th-this way, Frisk."

   Alphys went down the hallway that Endodgeny had appeared from and Frisk compulsively pet the furry creature. It seemed happy now, and wandered off somewhere different.

   The hallway was just as dark and unwelcoming as the rest of the facility. As the two of them kept going with Frisk in a drowsy haze and Alphys lost in... something, the majority of chittering, buzzing, shuffling, and various other unidentifiable sounds from the previous volunteers went largely unnoticed.

   "H-here."

   Alphys directed Frisk into a large room full of beds lined up in three rows.

   "Th-there's not too much dust down here. Surprisingly."

   Frisk walked over to the bed closest to the entrance and sat down at the edge to get rid of his still fire damaged boots.

   "Oh my.", Alphys said, noticing the scorch marks, "D-don't tell me Mettaton did that."

   "Nope. The fire did."

   "H-heh."

   When Frisk got them off, he stood back up and pulled back the covers, climbing in, but as he reached down to pull the sheets back up, he felt like something was off. He turned around and saw something that looked... mostly like a light post with a single limb. It reached over him and he almost jumped off the mattress before it's arm suddenly changed course and soon half his face was taken up by the comforter. The thing then just sort of... disappeared. Alphys snickered.

   "Well, you seem comfy. I'm gonna get going. If one of the Amalgamates wakes you up just try to get them to calm down and they'll wander off somewhere new. Goodnight."

   " 'Night Alphys.", Frisk called after her, repositioning the sheets down to his shoulders. A minute or two later, he heard the whirring sound of the elevator and slowly started drifting off...

-+-

   Frisk was talking to Chara. Her strange, softly predatorial voice echoed.

   "I just want you to be mine."

   "But-"

   "I know, I know."

   "..."

   "I love you."

   "Why do you say that? How do I know?"

   "Haven't I made it obvious?"

   "I guess... but I just can't love you."

   "Huh. My boyfriend doesn't love me."

   "Just..."

   "No, I get it. You're against me as a concept."

   "Yeah."

   "So why aren't you against me as a person?"

    _'Love'_ \--  _She's gorgeous -- She's adorable -- what am I saying -- Why? -- Now she decides to send me on a wild goose chase -- 'Love'  -- UGH! I just can't believe her! -- Chara Dreemurr, you elusive homicidal maniac, I think you're not the only one who's going to need mental care when this is over. -- 'Love' -- Hey,_  she  _kissed me. --  "I'm told mad people most of the time aren't even aware they're mad." -- 'Love' -- "I don't trust anyone else to end it"_

    _'Love'_

 

 

 

"Love?"


	11. Chapter 11

   Frisk was greeted the next morning by a chilly gust to his face.

   "Guh- Sans it's not funny." He mumbled without opening his eyes.

   "So... chilly...", a strange voice wavered. Frisk jumped and immediately opened his eyes. There was a strange looking figure in front of him, about two and a half feet tall. It seemed to have... three faces... and almost looked like it was melting. "Warm... up..."

   It sort of smiled. Frisk fully registered what was going on and climbed out of bed, getting down to the Amalgamate's level.

   "Huh. So what's your name?"

   They seemed to wilt a little.

   "What's wrong?"

   "Wasn't... funny..."

   "Huh?", Frisk thought about their words earlier.

   "Oh, I'm sorry. I don't always expect to joked at first thing in the morning. At least, not anymore."

   Frisk thought of all the times he'd been woken up with an endless string of puns.

   "Oh." They seemed less sad.

   "So you never did tell me your name."

   They seemed to think about it incredibly hard, but just couldn't find an answer.

   "Sn...o...wy..."

   Frisk realized that was Snowdrake's nickname.

   "That sounds a whole lot like the nickname of a friend of mine."

   They brightened.

   "Sno...wy..."

   They smiled. Just then, something hit him. It was another one of his urgent case files. Snowdrake's mother had gone missing a while back.

   "You wouldn't... happen to be his mother, would you?"

   She brightened further and nodded enthusiastically. Just as Frisk was wondering exactly who else was down here, he heard the elevator. It must've been Alphys. When the ping echoed faintly down the hall, Frisk decided now would be a good time to get his shoes back on. He was almost done lacing them up when Alphys shuffled in.

   "Oh, y-you're up. That's good. I d-don't really have much experience with getting people to wake up."

   "Hm.", he replied slightly absent-mindedly. Frisk stood up and turned to Snowdrake's Mother. He gave her a small smile. "His jokes are getting better. Slowly."

   That seemed to be all she needed to hear.

   "Um, what?", Alphys wondered as she walked closer.

   "Oh, I was just telling her something I thought she'd like to know."

   "Alright then..."

   "What time is it, anyway?"

   "Uhm... 10:30?"

   "What? Oh no, now Napstablook can't- well, no, he can totally get into the office but... ah geez."

   "Oh, I'm s-so sorry, I forgot that you d-don't sleep in most days, I j-just... oh..."

   "It's okay, Alphys, but I should really be going."

   He started for the hallway leading to the elevator.

   "Oh, and thanks for letting me spend the night!", he called over his shoulder.

   "N-No problem."

   "And you should probably tell everyone about these guys.", he reminded her as he approached the corner.

   "Oh, uhm... o-okay, r-right."

 

    _"I'm being blackmailed."_

 

   Frisk turned around and faced Alphys.

   "Alphys. Who exactly  _is_ blackmailing you?"

   "Huh? Ah- well... I-..."

   "Alphys, you're forgetting who the detective here is."

   "U-um... well, if you really think you can get to the bottom of it."

   "Of course I can. But I still need you to give me the first clue."

   "Oh, right! Well... I don't exactly know, really. They showed up and they told me they knew about everything and I was just so... scared. They were all so much bigger than me and- and they were... p-painfully condescending."

   "What'd they look like?"

   "They- They were all humans, actually."

    _All humans..._

   Before Alphys could finish describing them, Frisk asked another question.

   "You said they were condescending. Condescending how?"

   "W-well, they acted like th-they were above me. That's kind of the definition o-of condescending."

   "No, but I mean, did they say anything that would've tipped you off as to why they thought that."

   "Oh, well... I dunno, it was a while ago. About a month and a half. I can't really remember what they said. Sorry."

   "Don't worry... What have they been blackmailing you for, exactly?"

   "Ah... well, they told me that I had to keep them from being found out."

   "Found out for what?"

   "They told me the only thing I needed to know was that they have meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays that no one needed to know anything about."

    _Mondays and Wednesdays._

   "Alphys, I think you might've just cracked my murder case wide open."

   " _What?"_

   "Did you tell Bratty and Catty anything about it by any chance?"

   "I-... I told them to try keeping it a secret."

   "That explains it."

   "Explains what?"

   "Just a semi-interrogation from yesterday. Nothing you need to worry about."

   "Um... Alright then."

   "I need to go, but you really should let everyone know about these guys."

   He rushed off before Alphys could say anything else and hopped into the elevator.

   When he got to the ground floor, he started for the front door and noticed a constant, drizzly sound.

    _Must be raining._ , he thought.

   He noticed Alphys's brightly colored  _Mew Mew Kissie_   _Cutie_ umbrella. He weighed the possible guilt he'd feel over stealing her favorite (and only) umbrella for a day against getting hopelessly wet and decidedto take it with him. Right after he scribbled down a note for her.

   Once he was outside, Frisk began walking towards his office. He let his eyes wander about and they caught the sillouhette of the castle. As he crossed the street, he wondered about the castle's inhabitants. A foggy recollection of... a dream? Came to him.

    _Love_

   Had he... was he... it was all so confusing and he didn't have time for any of it. But still, he did have a knack for confusing things, and since this walk was probably going to take a while, he decided now was as good a time as any to try and figure it out.

    _But... how do I even start getting... whatever this is sorted out. I know for a fact I don't- I just... Okay, maybe I should start from the beginning. I saw her... covered in blood multiple times and I'm already frustrated and terrified and then she decides to kiss me! Then the party happened. So in that span of time, it's pretty clear exactly how I feel. Good. I've got one thing straight._

_Next, she shows up at my house and..._

   He swung his head downward as his face got red.

    _Apparently she thinks I'm perfect. That's what she said at least. Then she just... attaches herself to my arm and leaves a little before she'd probably be having dinner with her family. Oh my god, dinner with her family. Although, that happened after- dear lord, has all this seriously happened over the course of less than a week? Seriously? Well, I guess it started a little over a month ago, but maybe I should just start with the part where she kissed me for the first time. Which would definitely mean that it's hardly been a week. Ugh..._

   Frisk loosened his hold on the umbrella and let it rest on his shoulder as he slowed to a stop, allowing the raindrops to fall over his face and the front of his hair. It occurred to him that it was quite possible he looked a little strange with a vibrantly colored anime umbrella, cargo pants, a long sleeved pink-striped shirt, and singed combat boots in the middle of the rain, but he immediately decided it didn't matter.

    _So I somehow went from wanting her nowhere near other living beings to almost-sort of being her boyfriend within about a week. I don't know whether to laugh like the total mental case I am at the moment or just plain scream in frustration._

   Frisk decided it was less disturbing to the peace to just chuckle to himself and continued walking, repositioning the umbrella above his head.

    _So I now have a girlfriend who's responsible for the murder of about eight people and potentially responsible for twice that many, all of whom are implicit in Alphys's blackmail and suspected of planning some kind of coup. And, deciding there's no other answer, said girlfriend decides to just start killing all of them. All in the name of preserving her family. It's not even a government thing,_ _she just loves her family that much and has a horribly twisted moral compass._

   Somehow, he'd ended up in the Snowdin district and when he tuned in to his surroundings, he realized he'd been on autopilot for Sans and Papyrus's house. He looked behind him and wondered how long it would take to change his course back to his office. It was weird, but he always seemed to come here when he was thinking. Maybe it was because his brain wanted to stop thinking before he thought himself into an aneurysm. It was strange how the way he spent most of his time was also one of the more taxing activities he did. Frisk turned back to the house. He thought about what had happened with Sans and Alphys last night. He remembered everything Alphys had said about Sans.

 _I know for a fact you're way smarter and more powerful than I'll ever be, you don't have to make it your life's business to patronize me, Gaster!  
__Sans was always so much better than me at_ everything _. He could use p-powerful magic and got a grasp on everything quicker..._  
_your ideas were always better than mine! You always seemed to know what you were doing, and you got results for just about anything you thought of_  
 _We weren't a very good royal scientist, were we?_

   He wondered what Sans had been thinking all this time. Frisk walked inside.

   It was exactly the way it had always been. The living room was mostly empty, save for the couch and the television plus some tables, the kitchen still looked like it needed a more efficient sink, the stairs were the same, the banister remained the way it was supposed to be, and the only indication people actually lived there was the lack of the un-lived-in scent and overabundance of dust vacant houses had. Frisk smiled and placed the drippy umbrella next to the door.

   As he crossed the living room, he searched his mind for the memory of which of the stairs creaked. It was mostly to make sure Papyrus wouldn't wake up. He was pretty sure Sans already knew he was there.

   When Frisk got to the top, it occurred to him that Papyrus woke up at six, so trying to be quiet was doubly unnecessary. He looked across the hallway and noticed the strange glowing lights that always lashed out from underneath Sans's door. It had always made no sense to him, but Sans always kept his door locked so Frisk had never found out what it was that even made it happen. It had occurred to him a few times that it was probably some elaborate prank, and at some point when he was a teenager, he had the foggy recollection of his mind wandering into the possibility that Grillby was in there with him and...  _things_ were happening, which was most definitely the dumbest conclusion he'd come to in his life. 

   Frisk walked down the hall, past Papyrus's room and the door they'd made for his old room. He always felt... almost... something. Whatever it was, it always came to him whenever he thought about the fact that the two Skeletons had literally busted down a wall and made their rooms smaller just so Frisk had a place to sleep. He was grateful for it, but that was different from the other feeling he got.

   When he got to Sans's door, he stood there for a few seconds and realized he had no idea what to do or say. He hadn't planned to end up here in the first place. What was he supposed to do now?

   Frisk didn't need to think about it very long, because the door opened.

   "Huh. To what do I owe such a sudden visit?"

   "Uhm... autopilot?"

   Sans chuckled and walked out of the room.

   "You want anything to eat?"

   "That... yeah, that would be a good idea."

   They went downstairs and into the kitchen. As Frisk started pulling some things from the cabinets, Sans asked,

   "Shouldn't you be at work?"

   "Well, I just sort of ended up here after stealing Alphys's umbrella."

   "Heh... how is she?"

   Frisk popped some bread into the toaster.

   "Fine. At least, she seemed that way when I left. I was in a bit of a hurry. The um... Amalgagmates as she calls them seem to be mostly alright. If you can sort of overlook the insanity that is their bodies."

   "Good to know."

   Sans sounded... off.

 

   " _His name was W.D. Gaster."_

 

   Frisk placed the frying pan in his hand onto the stove.

   "What... what was his full name?"

   "Huh?"

   "Your- the royal scientist."

   Sans didn't look phased by the question, placing a carton of eggs on the counter next to the stove.

   "Wingdin."

   "Why... why isn't there a room for him?"

   "We didn't live here when he was alive."

   Frisk slowly reached for the dial above the stove to turn on the burner.

   "Did anyone... take care of you? After it happened?"

   "Not particularly. I guess Toriel came by a lot. Other people from around, too."

   Frisk cracked one of the eggs against the counter. There was a silence before the sizzle of the pan sliced through the air as the egg hit the metal.

    _Something's wrong._

   "Sans."

   "Hm?"

   Sans handed Frisk a spatula and he took it.

   "... What was he like?"

   Frisk swore the sound of the stove was silenced. It was like the world had been put on pause for an instant.

   "He-... he was... I'm not entirely sure, really. He was always such an enigma. One day he'd be all proper and quiet, the next he'd be a total mess until the day after that when he'd just sort of... lurk and be actually kinda creepy."

   "Hm, lurk and be creepy? Why I have absolutely no experience with anyone remotely like that."

   "Heh. What can I say, guess I got all the _skull_ -king genes."

   "That so? Then I'm guessing Papyrus got all the height ones."

   "Funny, kid."

   "Heh. What can I say?", Frisk echoed.

   Frisk flipped the egg over and the toast popped up. He was going to open one of the cabinets to get a plate but they opened on their own and a plate leisurely floated out and onto the counter. Frisk remembered the first time he'd seen Sans do that he'd been totally floored.

   "So... how old were you when you first learn to use magic?"

   It was pretty common for monsters to learn magic from their parents, but most didn't really start using it until they were around ten, and it wasn't always the fastest process. Which was part of the reason Sans's uncanny grasp on it was so strange. If he and Papyrus were living on their own since they were twelve, how could Sans have been taught to use magic so well?

    _Then again, he did say that Toriel would come by often, so it's perfectly possible she could've taught him. She does have hundreds of years worth of experience. But Undyne tells me the Dreemurrs use fire magic, so how could Toriel possibly teach Sans to do whatever the heck he does._

   "You know kid, you've gotta stop doing that.", Sans interrupted his train of thought.

   "Huh?"

   "Asking questions then spacing out."

   "I don't space out."

   "Kid I've known you most of your life, spacing out is a good chunk of it."

   "Alright then _'Dad'_. But you still haven't answered the question."

   "Touche'. I think I was about six or seven."

   Frisk paused, silently staring into space as he tried to convince himself that this was not nearly as shocking as he was making it out to be. Sans put the toast on the plate he'd gotten from the cabinet and raised one of his nonexistent eyebrows.

   "You act like it's surprising."

   "Probably because it is."

   "Well, he probably wouldn't have started teaching me when I was so young if That Thing hadn't happened."

   "And That Thing would be..?"

   "I nearly leveled the house and teleported us into basically oblivion."

    Now Frisk didn't bother trying to convince himself.

   "You did  _what!?"_

   "Nearly leveled the house and teleported us into oblivion."

   "... Wuh... how..."

   "Heh. Runs in the family I guess. He knew exactly what to do and got us back to normal. He started teaching me how to control it after that."

   "... What about Papyrus?"

   "He- okay, that's a whole other story."

   "I like stories."

   "Don't you need to get to work though?"

   "Oh shoot, that's right! Quick, pass me another egg."

   The skeleton complied and Frisk hastily dropped the shell's contents into the pan after taking out the other egg and plopping it on top of one of the pieces of toast. He then placed the spatula on the counter and took another piece of toast, placing it on top of the piece he'd put the egg onto and picked it up off the plate.

   "I hope Napstablook's alright. Bye Sans!", Frisk called over his shoulder as he picked up Alphys's umbrella and opened the door.

   "You sure you don't want company?"

   Frisk thought that was an odd thing for Sans to say before he remembered the whole shortcuts thing.

   "If you insist."

   Sans walked up next to him as Frisk took a bite of his hastily slapped together breakfast and they walked out the door. In a few seconds, they were outside Frisk's office door.

   "Thanks. Bye Sans."

   "See ya kid."

   Frisk opened the door and was not at all prepared for what he saw. Napstablook was sitting rather awkwardly at his desk and smiled cheerfully (or as cheerfully as Napstablook would smile) when Frisk entered. Nothing new or terribly unexpected, but lounging on top of Frisk's desk was none other than-

   "Frisk, there you are!", Chara paused when she noticed the umbrella Frisk was holding. "What on Earth are you doing with Alphys's umbrella?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wwwoww, this took forever to make! Mostly because I kept changing everything. And I feel like it's wayy too all over the place! (then again, I'm pretty sure Frisk does too) Anyway, sorry it took me so long to get it all nice and finished.


	12. Chapter 12

   "What are you doing on my desk?"

   "Now Frisk, I asked you a question first. It's rather rude of you to ignore it, isn't it?"

   "Isn't it a little rude of you to walk into someone's office uninvited?"

   "Point taken."

   "Um...", Napstablook intervened nervously.

   "Oh, sorry Napstablook. Good morning. Anything new?"

   "Um.... Shyren came by.... To ask if we'd found anything out about her sister."

   "Oh."

   Frisk wondered if that was related to the Amalgamates as well.

   "I would've called you...", Napstablook continued, "but you always say that, and your phone's still broken so..."

   "No, it's okay, compulsive habit, really."

   "Yeah..."

   "So," Chara stepped in, "you're usually not this late, and you still haven't answered my question about the umbrella."

   "I spent the night at Alphys's and stole this. Your turn."

   "Stole it? How scandalous. I didn't think you had it in you. And as for why I'm on your desk," she hopped off, "I thought it would be more dramatic."

   Frisk sighed.

   "She was already inside when I got here....", Napstablook said.

   "How'd you get in, anyway?", Frisk asked Chara.

   "Never underestimate the powers of a seasoned stalker. How do you think I got into your house?"

   "House...?", Napstablook wondered.

   Frisk simply let out a bigger sigh.

   "Well anyway," he said, "I'm assuming you came here for more than just 'Good morning'."

   "Come now Frisk, neither of us have said good morning to each-other so far. I simply wanted to help my boyfriend with his detective work."

   "Boyfriend?", Napstablook boggled.

   Frisk silently crossed the room, put his breakfast down on his desk, and opened the drawer with the empty folders. He placed one on his desk and grabbed some paper as he spoke.

   "Alright. Napstablook, I'll explain later, but you need to go ask Alphys for a list of volunteers. She'll know what you mean. I have another fish to fry."

   "Okay..."

   He faded out of the room leaving Chara and Frisk alone on either side of his desk.

   "What do you know about Alphys being blackmailed?", he asked her.

   "Nothing. I never thought Alphys would have anything worth blackmailing someone over."

   "You have no idea."

   "You said you spent the night at her place. What did you find out?"

   "Well, for one thing, she _told_ Sans and I she was being blackmailed and she told me what she knew about them this morning."

   "What exactly are they blackmailing her for?"

   Frisk opened his urgent case files and pulled out the folder holding the information on Snowdrake's Mother.

   "Snowdrake's mother was a volunteer in an experiment Alphys conducted in secret that didn't end very well. She seems fine, though. I get the feeling a bunch of other monsters who disappeared around the same time as she did are also in Alphys's lab. Shyren's sister for instance. I only saw one other Amalgamate -as Alphys calls them-, so I can't say who else is there."

   "... Why on earth would she do that?"

   "She was looking into something found in Humans called DT and it's applications and effects on Monsters."

   "Why didn't she tell anyone?"

   "My best guess is that she was trying to make it a surprise. But that's not the point, the point is I think these people are the same ones you're killing."

   She returned his gaze for a second before darting her eyes away.

   "So, that's how they managed to be so discreet. People trust Alphys, so if she asks them to keep something a secret and it doesn't look too suspicious even though it _totally_   _is_ they'll comply."

   "Plus, no one really knows about it in the first place, so there won't be many people asking around."

   "Although wouldn't actively trying to keep it secret just make more people curious about it?", She questioned, shifting her gaze back to him.

   "You have to remember Alphys talks to next to no one. In fact, I'm pretty sure she only told Bratty and Catty, since it's so close to where those two... I have no idea if they live there or just pedal their junk there."

   "I don't have any idea who you're talking about."

   "That's because you didn't spend a good chunk of your life wandering the streets."

   "What now? Wow, you didn't have very responsible parents."

   "Of course not. How do you think I ended up in a relationship with a serial killer?"

   "... Um..."

   She looked away from him.

    _Shoot, what'd I say- well that's kinda obvious! Why am I even thinking about this? Why do I care? It's not like I-... where was that sentence even going?_

   "Y-you don't have to say that." Chara mumbled, "I mean, we're alone now, it's not like..."

   "Huh? Chara, w-"

   "It's not like I don't know you hate me."

   There was silence.

   "Chara, I... I don't..."

   "You're lying."

   "... Chara, look at me."

   She hardly moved her head and lifted her gloomy red eyes to his face. They broiled with untrusting scrutiny as they analyzed his every expression and movement. Frisk remained unfazed.

   "I'm going to be honest with you. I have no idea how to feel about you or what you've done. But... I don't know. I guess... Maybe I- Maybe I like... the idea of being your boyfriend."

   Her eyelids fluttered and she lifted her head to fully face him.

    _Should I say something else? I feel like I should say something-_

   "But... how can you say that?"

   She looked lost.

   "I-... that's the funny thing, I have no idea.", his muscles tugged around his lips and Frisk ended up with a small smile on his face. Chara blinked and looked surprised. "I just... maybe it's just my personality but I... I guess you could say I love everyone no matter what and well, you're no exception."

   She didn't seem to understand.

   "Well, I mean, it's not like you're like a random person on the street I just mean- um... I guess I'm trying to separate what you've done from who you are and I think that's another thing and- and..."

   Frisk couldn't tell what the expression on her face was supposed to mean.

   "I... I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't think you're the worst person on planet earth just because you don't have the world's best moral compass according to the law."

   She stood there taking in what he'd just said and he looked her straight in the eye the whole time. That thing behind her eyes from yesterday was now right up front, and if Frisk thought about it enough, he was able to identify it. Guilt.

   She pulled her eyes away again and moved her arms close to her chest.

   "I... I don't... I don't deserve to live on the same  _planet_ as you! How can you- I..."

   "Hey, you're technically the one who started it."

   "But- I didn't... I don't understand!"

   Frisk walked around his desk and placed his hand on her shoulder. She stared at it, completely torn.

   "How... how could you... I- I get it if you're just trying not to put off all your friends by constantly trying to explain without actually explaining. Or how you can just sort of go along with it when it's easier than trying to diffuse the situation. But... but you said... How can you say that?"

   Frisk shifted his eyes away before looking back to her.

   "Because... well, it doesn't hurt that you're really pretty."

   That got her to look back at him again, obviously confused.

   "You're graceful and intelligent and kind of scary, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. You may not be the most... merciful person but you care deeply about the people around you. You definitely aren't scared to offend anyone, and... I don't know. Maybe part of it is just that I like talking to you but- oh my gosh, are you okay?"

   She sniffled and wiped away a few of the tears trickling out of her eyes.

   "I-... I'm... No! No I am not okay! I- I just... Y-you... you should hate me. I, I've killed so many people over something so stupid! I could've solved it much easier, but I- I wasn't-... I just... Then I went and I kissed you, like the total idiot I am! I... I just wanted to know- I don't know! But- but I just wanted to... I want to..."

   Frisk wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

   "... Frisk, what're you-"

   "Shh. You don't get to talk anymore. You just stand there and feel better."

   There were a few seconds of silence before Chara's breathing became harsh. She got out a few hiccuping sobs before she put her arms around Frisk.

   "Hhh... hhh... hic- h- AAHHH!!"

   Chara shook and her grip became more of a vise, like Frisk was the only thing keeping her from falling into oblivion. He stood there unchanging, anchoring her. He could've gone deaf in the process, but it wouldn't have made him flinch. His stomach dropped a little every minute as all her guilt and sadness raked against his ears and started to soak his shoulder, making it cold. It felt like hours before she finally stopped crying. She relaxed her arms, but stayed glued to his torso and didn't move from his steady hold.

   "... Can I talk now?", She croaked.

   "Do you feel better?"

   "Mhm."

   "Alright then."

   "I... I never thought... I never thought you could be so..."

   She trailed off.

   "How can you... be so..."

   She drew her arms a little tighter.

   "Dammit Frisk! Say something!"

   He jumped a little.

   "What do you want me to say?"

   "How am I supposed to know?"

   "Well you are the one who told me to say something."

   She gave an exasperated sigh.

   "See, that's another thing. How do you do that?"

   "What do you mean?"

   "How do you just... just make a way for everything to be okay and... normal? It doesn't matter what it is, you just... you make everything seem less serious or hard to handle and you just... I don't understand."

   He shrugged a bit, trying his best not to disturb Chara's chin on his shoulder, which by now was completely soaked.

   "Maybe it's something I learned from Sans."

   "No, Sans takes nothing seriously. Or at least, he actively tries to make it look that way. You just... do it on your own. You say the perfect thing to make someone less strung up, or diffuse the situation with a sentence. I don't understand it."

   "Clearly you didn't hear me tripping over myself trying to get you to understand what I was saying earlier."

   "No, that's a different thing entirely. It's kinda cute though."

   "Hm."

   "What's wrong, is Fwisky embawassed?"

   "I've told you not to call me that."

   "So what  _should_ I call you?"

   "Just my name. That's kind of what it's for. To call me by."

   She huffed a bit.

   "Honestly, you're the best boyfriend on earth, but you can be a real stick in the mud sometimes."

   "Nah, I just like being called by my name."

   "Heheh."

   Chara finally moved her head from his shoulder and they were face to face. She gave him a small smile and her still-recovering bloodshot eyes accentuated her preexisting eye color and matched the fading blotchy flush on her face. The tear tracks still reflected the light and her nose ran just a little. Frisk moved his right hand from her back and wiped away the cold moisture from her cheek and she leaned into his palm.

   "Why don't you hate me?"

   "Well, the first few times we talked I did."

   "Oh..."

   Her eyes moved to the floor.

   "But, to be fair, the last week has been completely insane. And I really do think you're... I really need a better adjective."

   "I feel like you've said that before.", her lips quirked up.

   "Because I have. Twice I think."

   "Hm.", she lifted her head and looked Frisk in the eye. "I think I like the idea of being a nonexistent adjective."

   "I'm glad you think so."

   Chara closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Frisk's.

   "You know, I do still have a job to do. And Napstablook can come in any second now."

   "Whatever."

   Frisk sighed and closed his eyes. They stayed like that for what felt like a while before Napstablook's voice disturbed the air.

   "Frisk! Frisk I..."

   Frisk opened his eyes and moved his head away to look at Napstablook. Chara turned to him as well.

   "What is it?", Frisk asked, sounding surprisingly professional considering the position he was in.

   "I... I can't find her... she... Alphys isn't... anywhere!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! I most certainly didn't spend two days trying to write that one paragraph on crying!


	13. Chapter 13

   Frisk let go of Chara and she turned to fully face Napstablook as Frisk walked to stand next to her.

   "What do you mean?", Frisk persisted.

   "She... I looked... all over her lab... Then I looked... in the basement... I didn't know Alphys had a basement, but she does... there was nothing there... So I asked Bratty and Catty... but they hadn't seen her... then I asked Mettaton... but he didn't know either... Undyne started shouting at me... and I couldn't find Sans... and Papyrus was busy.... I thought about asking Asgore but.... but.... I can't find her!"

   Chara and Frisk stood there taking this in.

   "What do you mean there was nothing in the basement?", Frisk asked.

   "I... um... it was... empty... there were some beds... and sinks and fridges and other stuff... but it was just really dusty... and creepy... and empty."

   "That doesn't make any sense.", Frisk muttered.

   "I'll go ask Dad, you find Sans.", Chara said, running out the door before anyone could say anything. Frisk stared after her before deciding to go out.

   "Napstablook, I need you to look around where Alphys usually is,, and where she's usually not. Just look everywhere."

   "Okay..."

   Frisk picked up Alphys's umbrella on his way out and went straight to Grillby's, since that's usually where Sans went at this time of day.

   When he walked in, however, Sans wasn't anywhere to be seen. Frisk turned around and walked back out and didn't bother opening the umbrella again as he dashed over to check Alphys's lab.

   She wasn't there. Neither was Sans. But those two weren't the only ones he was looking for. He went down to the lab and checked for himself.

   "Endodgeny!", he called into the halls. Nothing.

   "Hello! Anyone?"

   Still nothing. He ran through his recent missing persons cases.

   "Moldbygg! Aaron! Astigmatism! Final Froggit! Whimsalot!"

   He was relatively sure he'd gotten himself lost. He was soaked, cold, lost, and confused. He'd been moving too much today, he'd hardly had breakfast, the only reason his head wasn't spinning right now was because he'd gotten to sleep in, he didn't know where Sans or Alphys or any of the Amalgamates were. He leaned against the wall and sank to the ground. He hadn't noticed how hard he'd been breathing.

   "Why can't a day go by without something strange or dangerous happening?"

   There was a bizarre whisper-like noise from behind him and Frisk jumped, turning to see what it was. About five feet away was a peculiar hunched over figure. It tilted its head and in the low light, Frisk was pretty sure it smiled and waved.

   "Um... hello. You wouldn't happen to be one of the Amalgamates, would you?"

   They seemed confused and shook their head.

   "Oh...?"

   They lifted their hand and seemed to start signing at him. But what caught Frisk's eye first was the holes in their palm.

   "I.. I'm sorry, I don't know sign language."

   They lowered their hand and Frisk noticed something else. Their hand was most definitely skeletal.

   "Huh. I didn't think there were any skeletons around aside from Sans and Papyrus."

   The figure seemed to brighten and slowly... floated closer. Frisk got a closer look at them. They were around Papyrus's height, wore... something that seemed to swallow their entire body below their neck in void, and had empty, ovular eyes sockets that were slightly cracked and shared Sans's quality of having small pricks of light to serve as pupils. They looked about as well put together as the Amalgamates and their eyes flickered erratically, like they could go out at any second. If Frisk looked close enough, he would've noticed that as they sputtered off and on, they had small tints of blue and orange.

   "So... you know about them?"

   They nodded.

   "Hm. I don't think they ever told me about you. What's your name?"

   They began to lift their hand before they remembered and began to think of some other way to get it across to him. Frisk, meanwhile, ogled the fact that their hands didn't seem to be attached to any arms. The figure looked around and found an old dusty screen, deciding that would be a good idea.

   They reached out their hand and began writing in the dust that had accumulated there.

    _W.D. Ga-_

   "Gaster?", Frisk gawked in disbelief.

   The figure turned back to him, smiled, and nodded affirmatively.

   "But- I mean- Sans and Alphys... told me you died."

   Why am I even talking to him? I'm pretty sure he's a stress-induced illusion at this point.

   Dr. Gaster looked down with an expression that seemed to say, 'Oh yeah, that'. Frisk sighed.

   "Alright, I'm relatively sure you're a hallucination, but then I remember my life. So, what I'm going to do, is pretend I didn't see you and come back later after I've gotten all the other shit that has popped up over the past two days sorted out. Pardon my tongue."

   It was a compulsive phrase, mostly from being raised by Papyrus. The skeleton looked at him for a second before nodding sagely and... fading from existence. Yep. Definitely a hallucination. Still, he had said he'd come back, and maybe he would, just to sort of recuperate from whatever it was that he knew was going to go down. It occurred to him that he could've asked if Wingdin (W.D.?) had seen Alphys, but he doubted he had, let alone would be able to tell him in enough detail to be helpful.

   Frisk walked through the empty lab and noticed the umbrella on the ground. He must've dropped it. He picked it up, went to the ground floor and put it back in Alphys's little holder. That was when he noticed something. His note from this morning was gone.

   Frisk turned around and examined the area for anything else. Nothing.

   He ran up to Alphys's room. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing moved.

   But his note was gone. Which meant Alphys had come upstairs and read it before disappearing. It wasn't the world's biggest breakthrough, but it meant that she hadn't been taken from the lab below. But if she was the only one missing, this would be much easier to explain. The Amalgamates weren't there either.

   He came down the escalator back to the first floor and was met by none other than W.D. Gaster.

   "... Hello. Again."

   The scientist looked around the lab with a slightly confused look on his face.

   "Has it been a while? How long have you been here anyway?"

   He thought for a moment and held up his fingers in a 'ten'.

   "Ten... minutes?"

   He nodded.

   "How long ago was it that you left?"

   He began to think again and his face worked itself into a deliberating grimace. Frisk stood there wondering why on Earth he was talking to what was basically an actual ghost... or whatever the heck Gaster was. After a few more seconds of deep thought, the monster simply looked at Frisk and shrugged.

   "Huh. Well, it's been a while since anyone's seen you. Years actually. Sans and Alphys became the royal scientist. Until Sans decided to quit. It's just been Alphys since then. Although, I wasn't around when all that happened."

   Wingdin seemed surprised, and Frisk didn't blame him. He looked over at the total mess that was Alphys's desk and noticed her little Mew Mew Kissie Cutie figurine. He smiled sentimentally.

   Frisk was now mostly sure he wasn't hallucinating, but that just created more questions he didn't have time for.

   "Speaking of Sans and Alphys, I'm looking for them. You wouldn't happen to know where they are, would you?"

   The skeleton turned to Frisk and shook his head. Frisk sighed.

   "Well, I thought I'd ask. You wouldn't mind helping me look, would you?"

   He nodded and began to disappear before Frisk remembered something.

   "Wait!"

   Gaster paused, but then began to... become white noise. He seemed to glitch around the area before finally managing to get himself together and present.

   "Sorry, but I was wondering if you knew Asgore's number."

   He nodded and floated over to Alphys's desk to search for the phone. Once he found it, he pressed some of the numbers and held the receiver out to Frisk, who'd made his way over. Frisk took the phone and nodded to the skeleton. Wingdin smiled and resumed fading out of the room.

   The other line rang for a few seconds before someone picked up.

   "Alphys?", Toriel's voice asked, "Is that you?"

   "Nope, sorry. But on the subject of Alphys, I need to talk to Chara."

   "Oh? But... hm."

   "What is it?"

   "Alphys called earlier, but then she put Asgore on hold."

   "She called? When?"

   "It, it was about an hour ago I believe. No, more like forty-five minutes."

   "Okay."

   Frisk looked at the clock. It was 11:50. He did the mat in his head, and the fifteen minute window Toriel had provided presented itself between 10:50 and 11:05.

   "Um, but why are you using Alphys's phone?", Toriel asked him, "And why to talk to Chara?"

   "Well... Alphys is missing."

   "What?"

   "Based on what you've said, she could've only disappeared between 10:50 and 11:05, and Chara went back home to ask Asgore if he'd heard anything from her."

   "Oh no, do you know why she might've disappeared?"

   "There's two obvious options based on what she told me yesterday, and neither of them good."

   "What are they?"

   "Well, either a group of people who've been blackmailing her have done something with her, or she disappeared herself."

   "Blackmailing?"

   Toriel was sounding more and more distressed.

   "Yes. So I needed to talk to Chara to see if she'd found anything out."

   "I... of course, I see. She's out in the garden, hold on a moment."

   There was some silence before some shuffling sounds signaled the phone being handed off.

   "So what have you got?", Chara asked.

   "I was going to ask you the same thing. The Amalgamates are gone, I'm not sure if I'm hallucinating the previous royal scientist, and I still haven't found Sans."

   "Royal scien- Frisk, this is hardly the time for delusions."

   "I wish it was. It probably is."

   "... You can be incredibly strange, you know."

   "So I've been told. So what did you find out?"

   "Right. Dad says that Alphys called at around 11:00 and she was talking about how she had something important to tell him. She'd started talking about volunteers when she stopped and put him on hold. That was the last he heard from her."

   "Hm. Did he hear anything in the background?"

   "Hold on."

   There were some mumble-ish sounds on the other end before Chara came back on.

   "He said she kept getting distracted by something and there were some gurgling-chirping sounds every now and then."

   "Okay. We have an exact time, place, and setting now. Now we just need to figure out where they took her."

   "You're positive now?"

   "Absolutely."

   "Alright. I'm gonna go ask Papyrus if he knows where Sans is."

   "Good idea."

   "Love you."

   The statement caught him off guard and had an odd piercing effect.

   "I-... Yeah, me too."

   He hung up before anything else could be said.


	14. Chapter 14

   Frisk walked down the drizzly streets and asked anyone and everyone for what they knew. Nobody had been around when Alphys disappeared. He stood on a street corner when two very familiar impressions of an appearance made themselves known.

   "Frisk!", said Sans and Napstablook as he turned around.

   "Yup?"

   The two white monsters looked at one another before Napstablook began to speak.

   "Frisk! Bratty and Catty, they said they know where Alphys might be!", Napstablook motored.

   "Seriously?"

   "Hold on, what's this about Alphys?", Sans asked.

   "She's missing.", Frisk responded bluntly.

   "Huh?"

   "Where did they say she could be?", Frisk asked Napstablook.

   "They said... that there were these meetings she'd talked about... the entrance... was near city core, somewhere between Mettaton's studio and Muffet's bakery."

   "Got it. Sans, can you get us there?", Frisk asked.

   "Um- yeah. But I needed to-"

   "We don't have time, Alphys is more important. I'm assuming you're talking about Wingdin."

   "Ah... yea-"

   "Then can you get us to where Napstablook was talking about before something happens to her, since she's hopefully not a ghost yet, please and thank you."

   Sans seemed a bit shaken by the whole situation, but he shook his head and nodded. 

   "Yeah, I can get us there. Follow me"

   Sans turned the corner and Frisk and Napstablook followed. They were standing right in front of Muffet's bakery.

   "Great. Now where would she be?" Frisk wondered aloud.

   He walked forward, not paying Sans and Napstablook any mind. His eyes scanned the area, piercing through the raindrops. Nothing yet. What would count as 'near the dump', as well as 'close enough to hell's kitchen'?  What could be a place that wouldn't raise suspicion. Someplace no one would expect and could be an easily kept secret. There was a flower scratched into the bricks of an alleyway. Frisk passed it before pausing. Who would scratch a flower into an alley?

   He backed up, nearly walking through Napstablook in the process. He looked at it closely. It seemed crude, but not careless. Not like somebody had done it out of boredom. It wasn't even anywhere close to a bus stop, so it wouldn't make sense for it to have been made by someone who was wanting something to occupy themselves while waiting. Plus, Frisk had a hunch about it, so this seemed like the best idea.

    _'Howdy, I'm a garden demon, and I've been haunting this place for the past few weeks!'_

   Frisk blinked silently to himself, wondering why that had popped into his head at that moment.

   "This way." He said, waving Sans and Napstablook down the alley. There was a fence at the end with a tin 'roof' noisily ricocheting off raindrops. This was promising. He tested the planks and there were a few that were loose. He adjusted them and squeezed through. His leg was promptly snared and pulled from beneath him.

   "Wha-!" Everyone promptly reacted. Frisk was dragged across the room while he got progressively more tangled in... vines?

   "My my my~" Said a tiny voice. Frisk tried to turn to it, narrowly missing his eye getting sliced through like a grape by the  _monstrous thorns_ all around. Frisk nearly stopped breathing.

   "Youuuuuuu are veeeeeerrry interesting~!" The voice continued.

   "Frisk!" Sans and Napstablook called. Frisk still couldn't turn his head, but he could see the light from outside in his periphery.

   "Don't move!" He yelled to them before they could come in.

   "Ooooh, you silly!" The voice tittered, "You were all doomed the second you moved the fence!"

   "hhh-AAAUUGH!" Napstablook's voice shattered the air.

   "Napstablook!" Frisk cried. He couldn't see what was going on, but hearing that made him feel like dying. Chara or anyone couldn't carve a corpse in any way that could traumatize Frisk worse than seeing Napstablook's dust scattered across a room.

   Before anything else could happen, the room filled with a strange water-ish substance that came and went and seemed to defy gravity. It stung Frisk's skin and seemed to sizzle against the vines.

   " _Ow!_ HEY, no fair!" That same voice shouted.

   "Can't.... can't die.... can't die here..." Napstablook weeped. The pieces came together in Frisk's mind. This was Napstablook's magic. He'd never really seen it before.

   "Don't be such a ba- _ow!"_

   Frisk kept his eyes closed and hoped he wouldn't end up breathing in the caustic substance.

   "Frisk!" A voice screamed from the rain.

   "Wh-" The small voice stuttered upon hearing Chara's voice.

   "Pipsqueak, you  _better_ still be alive in there!" Undyne yelled from outside.

   "Sans, what's going on and how did Frisk get there?" Papyrus's voice chimed in.

   "Well don't all rush in at once!" Chara sniped at them. He heard her footsteps and hardly got two syllables out before he heard her squeal in alarm.

   "Well well welly wellll~" That same tiny voice simpered. Frisk was pulled into an upright position and Chara was promptly plunked down next to him. "You two seem to share some very interesting qualities. You could say your souls are the same, in a way."

   "Who the fuck are you and what the hell are you doing to my boyfriend!" Chara spat, looking in the direction of the voice. But neither of them saw anyone.

   "Oh, my apologies!" Frisk noticed movement coming from a flower below. When his eyes focused on it, he thought he might be going crazy, considering the  _flower_ had a  _face._ "I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower!"

   "... What?" Chara sounded... like she recognized it.

   "Can't you hear, dum-dum? I  _said_ I'm _Flowey._ Flowey the  _flower?"_

   Chara looked down at the flower incredulously, somehow twisting her face into a mixture of offended, confused and murderous.

   "Where's Alphys?" Frisk demanded. He was rewarded with a set of thorns to his arms. He gasped, but gritted his teeth, glaring the sentient flora in the eye. He'd probably freak out about the fact that there even _was_ a sentient flora in the first place later.

   "Why do you care?" The flower snarked, "She's dumb anyway."

   Flowey was promptly impaled by both a bright cyan bone and a glowing turquoise spear. It let out a strangled gasp and sank into the ground. It then reappeared a little closer to Chara and Frisk. Flowey turned to the entrance where the others were clambering in. Frisk managed to turn his head and he'd never seen Sans so angry before. Undyne was also just about as livid, but Frisk was honestly too terrified by San's countenance at that moment to notice.

   "What is  _wrong_ with you?!" Flowey screeched.

   "Tell us where she is before I really hurt you." Undyne glowered, proceeding to summon about twenty spears and surrounding the flower with them. Frisk saw the thorns curling around everyone's legs. He only had half a second to wonder where Napstablook and by extension his magic was before all his friends present were bound up in thorns. Undyne and Papyrus screamed and if Sans had a tongue to bite (which Frisk had never been fully positive if he did) it would likely be bleeding.

   "NO!" He cried.

   "D'aww, so soft-hearted." Flowey crooned. "You're just adorable."

   " _Shut up! Shut up you damn buttercup!"_ Chara yelled. Frisk turned just in time to see the cause of Chara's sudden squeak. There were thorns digging into her entire body. Her breath shuddered and her clothes were slowly overtaken by blooms of crimson blood.

   " _STOP IT!"_ Frisk wailed.

   "Hmmm... nah. This is too much fun." Flowey replied.

   Chara's shriek cut through the air and Frisk's vision blurred. Everyone was in pain. Everyone was hurting. He couldn't take it.

   "Aww, are you gonna cry?" The flower taunted, "Wow, I didn't think it would be this easy. You're always so very stoic. Robotic, almost."

   "Shut  _UP!"_ Chara gasped. Frisk eventually noticed the thorns slowly burying themselves into his body, invading his bloodstream and draining his energy. What had happened to Napstablook in all of this? 

   "What is  _wrong_ with you?" Frisk whimpered.

   "Hmm... Well, what's wrong with  _you?"_ Flowey tilted his head, baring his strangely sharp teeth. Frisk decided to let himself wonder as to how a flower could have teeth or a face in the first place to better block out the excruciating pain. "I mean, your soul's nearly identical to Chara's, but you act nothing like her. Not at all. In a way, you both have the same soul. How does  _that_ work?" The flower rolled his eyes dramatically. "Eh, whatever. This'll be fun anyways!"

   The thorns pressed in harder, burying themselves in Frisk's tissue and robbing him of restraint. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

   "FRISK!" Chara cried.

   Frisk was afraid he'd black out.

   "Human souls are made of much more durable stuff than monster souls," Flowey purred. "and you two seem to have especially potent ones. I'll definitely have a good time yanking them from your bodies."

   Everything went dark.

 

   But only for an instant.

    **Red.** That was all Frisk could really amount the agony to. He sure as hell didn't  _see_ anything other than red. He couldn't do anything other than scream as every fiber of his being was shredded and burned and broken. He felt... something resonating. Someone's soul harmonizing with his. Both consumed in smothering anguish.

    _Frisk..._

   Their voice.

    _Frisk..._

    _Chara!_

   This didn't make any... There was too much red to think.

    _I'm scared. I'm scared._

   Frisk wasn't sure who was thinking at this point. He was in so much pain he couldn't breathe. His heartbeat ricocheted in his chest erratically and his soul felt like it was truly shattering.

    _Hold me... I love you..._

   How Chara managed coherent thought was beyond him, but Frisk tried his damndest to do as she asked. He wasn't sure where either of them were or what was happening, but all he wanted was to hold her in his arms and tell her it would be fine.

   Before he could do anything, they were plunged into pitch black, darker than void. Soundless and unfeeling. Chara's shrieks crumbled him.

   There was a crack.

   Or rather, there wasn't one.

   It sounded like a droning tick of a backward music box being sucked into a vacuum. Everything swirled. Black and then red then-

   "✌︎❒︎♏︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ □︎&︎♋︎⍓︎✍︎"

   "Wh-" The world glitched around Frisk and he cried out. Somehow, existence glitching was much more terrifying than one would expect.

    _What just happened?_  A foreign voice echoed in his mind. Frisk blinked and finally took in everything around him. He was back in the closed room with Flowey and the others and Chara was next to him, looking just as confused. Everything but them was frozen. Well, everything but them and Wingdin.

   "Um..." Frisk looked up at the spectre, but he simply lifted a finger to his nonexistent lips and promptly glitched straight out of existence. The world turned to white noise for a moment and he reached out to where the scientist had been, taking a stride forward before suddenly everything snapped back to life.

   "-- Robotic almo-...  _What?!"_

   Everyone in the room stared at Frisk and Chara, and the two of them took a moment to realize why. They weren't tied up in vines anymore. The second Chara realized it, she lunged for the flower and clenched her fist in a death grip on its stem. She held a knife to its petals and the look on her face could turn molten rock to permafrost. For the first time since he'd encountered the flower, it looked scared.

   "Listen here you weed." Chara growled, "You are going to tell us where Alphys is and I am going to kill you however many times and however hard it takes."

   Frisk suddenly remembered why he'd been so terrified of Chara when he'd first met her. Flowey's face twisted into disgusted indignance before it morphed its mouth into a sharp, grotesque smile.

   "Well, I'm not entirely sure about  _all_ of her, but most of her's somewhere in the back corner."

   Chara's eyes went wide and her pupils might as well have been nonexistent. She clenched her teeth as what Flowey had just said sunk deep into Frisk's and everyone's veins. Flowey probably would've laughed mockingly if Chara hadn't let out a blood curdling animalistic roar and proceeded to rip the flower out by the roots. The snapping sounds of plant matter and the sharp thump of metal piercing into the dirt could be heard over Chara's heavy breathing. She clawed at the ground with her hands, slicing through every root and vine she could find. The sounds of murder filled the deafening silence of realization. Small grunts and gasps came from Chara as her movements became more frantic. Her hands and arms got cut on thorns but she didn't seem to notice. Frisk stepped closer.

   "Chara." His voice was small. Microscopic in the immense silence enveloping all the shed's inhabitants. The rain intensifying didn't register. Her sounds became louder and more frequent as her strikes ceased discrimination. She lost purpose, lost control.

   "Alphys... Alphys..." She susserated, hardly breathing. Her movements slowed and she let go of the knife. Her fists beat into the dirt. "Alphys..." She sobbed.

   "Chara." Frisk stood next to her, hunched over the remainder of their adversary in the dirt. She didn't look up. She took in a deep, shuddering breath.

   "ALPHYS!" She screamed. She broke down crying, crumpling in a heap over the messy hole she'd left in the ground. "How could... How could... Alphys...  _Alphys..._ "

   Frisk along with everyone else stared at Chara. The woman seeming to express everyone's grief for them.

    _Alphys you... stupid... stupid..._ idiot!, Frisk jumped at Chara's voice in his mind.  _You can't leave... You can't leave... You're always there, you can't leave..._

    _She's gone._ Frisk thought. Chara took in a sharp breath and ceased sobbing for a moment. She managed to get herself an inch further from the ground and tilted her head to look at Frisk from the side of her salt soaked eye through her hair.

   "Frisk." Sans's voice snapped him from his state. "You... You need to see... This."

   Frisk wished more than anything in that moment that he wasn't so good at predicting things.

   He slowly turned his head to Sans.

   Turned his head to where Sans was looking.

   And felt like he'd been plunged right back into that feelingless void.

    _Napstablook._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer's block whyyy.  
> Also, just to be clear, Sans went amscray to grab everyone while Frisk was incapacitated and Napstablook was getting attacked.


	15. Chapter 15

   "Napstablook, you can't die right now."

   "I....... was al...ways.... afraid.... this would happen. But now... I'm kinda.... glad I helped...."

   "Napstablook, stop talking. I promise, you'll be okay."

   "Frisk..... Tell Metta.... he...." The monster's eyes drooped as his body began to fizzle. "can..... use that song..."

   Frisk's best friend fell apart in his hands.

-+-

   Sans had taken the bullet and collected the Dust. The Amalgamates were still nowhere to be found and Frisk had a feeling everyone would stay missing persons this time. Papyrus had taken Undyne to his house. Chara had leaned against Frisk while he walked her home. When they got there, Toriel and Asgore rushed them, asking what had happened and why she'd left so suddenly. One look from the couple silenced them as Asriel walked over.

   "... Chara..?"

   Chara wrapped her arms around Frisk and buried her face in his shoulder for the second time that day. He lifted the hand that wasn't supporting Chara to her head and softly, softly stroked her hair. His face remained a blank mask, as it had been since they'd left the hidden room.

    _It's okay._

    _It's_ not _okay._

_It's fine._

_How can you_ say _that?! You feel just as horrible, I know it. We wouldn't be talking otherwise!_

   She had a point. That same feeling of resonation remained throughout the walk. He'd listened in on Chara's thoughts and his presence seemed to pacify her.

    _He said our souls were the same..._

Chara shifted to curl into Frisk further.

    _If you're going to talk about that_ thing, _you can keep your thoughts to yourself._

   Frisk held onto her with both arms.

    _Sorry. I guess I'm trying not to think about it._

_That's a terrible way to grieve._

_Maybe._

   "Chara, honey?" Toriel reached out to her daughter and placed her paw on her back. Chara's shoulders tensed and Toriel looked on sadly. Asriel looked between his sister and Frisk before finally stopping on the man and asking,

   "What... happened?"

   Frisk looked down at the boy for a moment.

    _You can't tell him._ Chara thought.

    _So you want to keep it a secret from the_ prince _that the_ royal scientist _is no longer with us? That doesn't seem like the best idea, princess._

 _How fucking dare you manage to be snarky at a time like this._ But her small shudder of breathy laughter gave away her relief. Frisk smiled down at her as she remained attached to his shoulder. Her family's attention returned to her.

   "Chara, sweet pea?" Her father tried.

   "She's dead." Chara croaked, not moving from Frisk's shoulder. Her family balked at her for a moment and Toriel looked to Frisk.

   "What does she mean?" She asked. Frisk smiled sadly. He had the feeling she knew already.

   "Alphys." He said, "We didn't find her in one piece."

   Toriel gasped as her hands went to her mouth. Asriel stared up at the two of them while Asgore looked on shocked and dumbfounded.

   "No..." Toriel whispered. Chara chuckled darkly and her saturated laughter bounced off the insides of Frisk's head, worming its way through his soul. Asgore's eyes darted to his daughter, but before he could say whatever he'd been thinking, Frisk spoke.

   "In all fairness, the entire thing came a bit out of nowhere. I was investigating something completely different when we were blindsided by Alphys disappearing. Then... how long ago did we even start looking?"

   "Probably about thirty-ish minutes I think." Chara said almost mirthfully, "Maybe not even that  _long."_ Her voice strained at the last word.

   "Yeah. I don't think there was any faster way to do it." Frisk continued.

    _Why are you saying this?_ Chara asked.

    _I'm not sure. Working through the shock? Trying to find an explanation?_

   "But-" Asriel's small, wobbly voice broke their train of thought. "But she... Alphys said-" Asriel's voice cracked. " _Alphys said she was gonna watch the third season of Mew Mew Kissie Cutie with me."_

   The boy broke down crying clinging to his father's leg.

   "She promised..." He sobbed, "She said she was excited... She said she hoped they fixed the plotholes... She said we'd watch it together and she'd explain everything to me... She promised!"

   "Asriel..." Asgore rumbled softly, patting Asriel's head.

   "But she promised... she promised..."

   Chara's grip on her boyfriend tightened. Frisk brought his hands to her shoulders, pulling her into a more secure hold.

    _It's okay. You're safe._

_Shut up, you sound like one of those stupid protagonists who thinks they can fix everything just by being there._

   A smirk tugged at the corner of Frisk's lips.

    _Right now I wish I was._

   Frisk looked around. Toriel was all but despondent with her hands still on her mouth. Asgore looked positively destroyed and Asriel continued to wail into his parent.

    _Wow, I'm an_ exceptionally  _awful girlfriend, aren't I?_ Chara's voice interrupted.

    _What do you mean?_ Frisk looked down at her.

    _Just an hour or so ago I said you_ could _make everything better._

Frisk thought for a moment and placed a small kiss on Chara's head.

    _Do you_ feel _better?_

_... Yes._

   Her voice faded from his mind. He  _felt_ the loss of her presence in his thoughts. He felt so lost without her.

    _She really does feel better, I guess._

-+-

   They all stood out there for the longest time. Asriel never once stopped crying. Toriel got a grip first.

   "... How about we go inside. I can make some tea." Her voice sounded far too small. Frisk looked to her, then smiled and nodded. Asriel continued to sniffle quietly as the party shambled inside the castle. Everything seemed too big for their bodies, but far too small for their grief. Toriel disappeared into the kitchen and Asgore sat down with Asriel in the reading chair. Chara hadn't let go of Frisk.

   "... You're thinking about him, aren't you?" She asked quietly as possible. Asriel, consumed in his tears as he was, didn't even register that she'd spoken. Asgore hadn't heard either. Frisk bit down on his lip. Some of the dust was still stuck between his fingers. He'd only just noticed. God.

   "If I'm being honest, no." He whispered. Chara tilted her head to look up at him, listening closely. "I've been listening to you since then and all you thought about was Alphys. I wasn't really thinking much at all out there."

   "... I'm sorry."

   He honestly didn't want to hear it.

   "You wanna sit down?" He asked her.

   "I don't want to let go."

   There was no couch in the room, so the statement made sense.

   "Okay." He said.

   When Toriel returned eons later, the fur around her pink eyes was ruffled and matted, and there were tear tracks staining her cheeks. She poured the cups silently and handed one to her husband and one to Frisk. She seemed to realize it was unwise to hand her grieving children a hot beverage. Frisk held the mug in one hand, staring down into it. He couldn't help but think of Undyne whenever he had tea, since the first time someone had given him any was when Undyne had made some the first time they'd met. She really  _had_ scared him the first time he'd met her. Whenever he was younger, he was a bit high strung. It was something he was slowly growing out of. Or maybe he'd already grown out of it. Maybe Sans and Papyrus had jointly rubbed off on him.

   He rarely got introspective. Maybe death had that effect on people.

    _... Gaster... He's technically dead, isn't he? What did he do back there?  Were Chara and I..._ dying _?_

   He wished more than anything to have Chara there with him, talking to him silently between their minds. It was honestly so absurd to him how he could be in a spontaneous relationship with the woman he'd been determined to incarcerate just  _last_ _week,_ that he'd be depending on her voice n his mind and supporting her while she couldn't walk from lethargic grief. Perhaps he should've thought it through a little better. But right now there wasn't anything wrong with it aside from the whole serial murders thing, and Frisk was honestly too burnt out emotionally to think too deeply about it. He continued to stare into the translucent brown liquid wondering how Papyrus was dealing with Undyne. He failed to notice Toriel's gaze on Chara and him.

   "... Can I speak to the two of you privately?" Toriel said, harshly above a whisper. Frisk's eyes snapped up and he stared at her like a deer in the headlights. Chara shifted her gaze to Toriel belatedly with smudged, tired red eyes. Frisk set his untouched tea onto the table as silently as he could manage and nodded. Toriel nodded back and started out of the room. Frisk nudged Chara and she relinquished her hold on his body to wrap herself around his arm as they walked like she'd done just yesterday. At the time he'd kind of hated her for it and if he was honest with himself, he couldn't completely get over... **her** as of yet. Everything had happened so fast over the past few days he hadn't had time to truly think about anything, he'd just gone with the flow and followed his instincts like he always did. So far it hadn't steered him wrong.

   They walked down the hall and Toriel opened up a door. While Toriel was turning the knob, Frisk just barely heard Chara whimper as she tightened her grip on Frisk's arm and buried her face in his shoulder for the third time that day.

    _What's wr- oh. Right._

   He brought his free hand to her shoulder and she relaxed as Toriel swung the door open. She walked in, looking over her shoulder to make sure the two of them were still there. It was apparently a bedroom, Chara's if the size of the bed and the various other tells hung up and sitting around the room had anything to say about it. Toriel pulled a chair from the desk nearby and gestured for the two of them to sit on the bed. The three of them were a good five feet away from one another.

   "... What  _happened_ to Alphys."

    _Well she died obviously._ The two of them thought. Both of them noticed and they grabbed onto each-other's presence.

    _Please don't leave again._  Frisk begged her.

    _I wasn't really trying to. We were just separated._

   "... Do you remember that flower Asriel used to have?" Chara said to her mother suddenly. Toriel looked to Chara suspiciously, as did Frisk.

    _Is this about Flowey?_

_Still too observant for your own good._

   "Yes..?" Toriel prompted.

   "Well, I remember one day Alphys asked me to get it for her, that she had a surprise for Asriel. But a few days later when I asked about it, she said she'd lost it. It was kind of a flimsy story I mean, how do you lose a flower? But I just decided to get him another buttercup. He could tell the difference immediately and I decided to tell him that some annoying dog dug it up and he cried and- that's not the point. My point is I saw it where we... found her."

   "... What does it have to do with anything."

   "A lot." Frisk said. "It's a bit of a long story, and I don't think you'd need to hear it right this second. I'm not trying to keep it from you, just..."

   There was a knock on the door. Frisk knew that knock, it wasn't like what a knock from Asgore or Asriel would sound like with their soft hands, this hand was harder. Skeletal.

   "You know Sans, I kind of expected you to be at Alphys or Napstablook's. Or breaking the news to Mettaton."

   Chara and Toriel looked at Frisk like he was crazy. The door opened and Sans walked in silently, his eyes dim and his smile hardly a ghost of what it usually was. Hardly a ghost...

   "I figured I'd check up on you first. Plus I still have some questions for ya." Sans said, closing the door behind him.

   A prickly feeling made itself known in Frisk's mind and Chara thought,  _Okay, this is too many people in my room._

_Remind me not to invite you over on a Sunday._

   Chara shot him an incredulous look and turned promptly back to Sans. Frisk spoke before anyone else thought to.

   "You'll have to wait a bit."

   Sans shrugged. Frisk had to make a conscious effort to keep from shaking uncontrollably.

   Frisk had seen him like this exactly once, but it was a once that was ingrained into his memory. He'd been ten, and he'd broken into the shed behind the house and found something. Papyrus had chewed him out, but no talking-to from the taller skeleton could compare to the horrible feeling that scraped across his bones when Sans had caught him. Somehow the skeleton made the act of standing in the **exact. Same. Manner** he always did scary beyond all reason, and every move he made radiated icy indifference. Upon noticing Frisk's state over all this, Chara squeezed his hand.

    _I get that your Dad terrifies you, but it's not like he's mad at_ you.

    _He's not- I mean... Nevermind._

   Their mental grip on each-other began to falter and both tried and failed to regain some sort of stability on the front. Chara slipped away again.

    _Brilliant._

   "Can..." Chara spoke up, and all eyes were on her. Her arms wrapped tighter around Frisk's. "Can you all... leave. Please."

   "Oh. I'm sorry dear." Toriel said. "I'll get going then. Sans, would you like some tea?"

   "Nah, I'll be going home. You coming Frisk?"

   "I..." Frisk looked down at Chara, who still hadn't relaxed her grip. "If you haven't told Mettaton, I probably should." He said, not looking away from Chara as he directed his statement towards Sans. "Otherwise I think I'll just... go to my place."

   Chara's eyes went a bit misty, but she nodded and slowly released Frisk's arm. Frisk stood up gently and started to leave behind Sans and Toriel. Before he could close the door, Chara said,

   "I liked him. I thought maybe we'd be friends."

   Frisk froze. His grip on the doorknob tightened and it was at that moment that it finally sank in.   His best friend was dead.   How do you process that? How do you  _deal_ with that?

   "... Oh." Was all he said in response. He stood still for one more moment then exited, closing the door behind him. His fingers slid gently from the brass and he blinked once. Twice. Three times. Two people. Dead. Reduced to dust. And the  _amalgamates._

   "... I can't solve this, can I?" A bitter smile floated across Frisk's face. It was such an unfamiliar expression, all he could do was cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I legit did not expect to be writing this. What have I done? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T PLAN OUT A COMPLETE PLOT! PEOPLE DIE! (actually, I don't think death could've been avoided rather I wanted to or not)  
> This is the first time I've written about the grieving process! How do y'all think it's coming along?


	16. Chapter 16

   Chara heard something slide against her door and come to a stop at the floor outside.

    _Frisk?_

   He didn't respond.

    _Idiot._

   Chara stared at the ceiling. She could open the door. She could reach out to him... She was scared to. Any moment with Frisk was another moment where the man she loved could recoil from her for reasons that were almost always her fault. She remembered... Bloody hell that was this morning. It wasn't even lunchtime. How had all this happened in a matter of hours? She'd probably cried harder today than she had in her entire life.

   'Do you  _feel_ better?'

    _I miss you already._

   How could you miss somebody on the other side of the door? How could you be thinking about your relationship when someone you've known all your life just died?

    _I hate everything._

   It was a familiar thought. Never had it meant so much.

   Chara's body felt like lead. She couldn't stand if she tried. The princess looked to her door.

    _Frisk..._

-+-

   Frisk had been crying for longer than he could ever remember crying, which didn't really mean much considering his trademark stoicism. The tears fell silently as his mind was suffocated by thoughts of Alphys and Napstablook.

    _They're gone._

   There were heavy footsteps that Frisk didn't notice until they stopped in front of him. Frisk's gaze panned up to find Asgore holding a sleeping Asriel and looking down at him with a concerned expression. He wiped his face and began to speak.

   "I guess I should be leaving."

   Asgore gave him a smile drowning in sorrow.

   "Don't be silly, we have more guest rooms than we know what to do with. You don't have to walk all that way."

   Frisk's heart felt like a rock.

   "... If you insist." He made to stand, using the door as support until he could lean forward to balance on his feet.

   "Just upstairs and to the right there's rows and rows of them." Asgore told him. Frisk nodded and slowly made his way to the stairs. Asgore turned and resumed carrying Asriel to his room. Once Frisk had gotten halfway down the hall, Chara's door flew open. Frisk turned his head and saw Chara exacting his blank stare. They stayed still in the hallway like that for what felt like hours.

   "Frisk." The name left Chara's lips like something foreign. Frisk remained silent for another minute and Chara continued to speak. "I need you."

   There were plenty of ways Frisk could take that sentence. He decided not to react. Instead, he made his way back to the princess until they were inches apart.

   "I need you..." Chara repeated. "Don't go, stay with me."

   She didn't make any move towards him.

    _Hold me._

   He wasn't sure if he was remembering it, or if he'd heard what she was thinking right then. Part of him even thought that he himself had thought it, but this time he definitely didn't have to try nearly as hard. It honestly would've taken more effort not to collapse into each-other and hold on for dear life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the last chapter of Confidential! I'll take some time to work out the next installment of the story as I've decided to morph this into a series. Hope you'll stick around for part two! (and I am so so sorry it all had such a sad ending, I really should've seen this coming)

**Author's Note:**

> I feel the need to inform all that feedback is my sustenance, and I'd love it for you leave a comment! I hope this is off to a good start. ^u^


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